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The Cheap-Eaters
The cheap-eaters have been eating at the Vienna Public Kitchen for years, from Monday to Friday, and true to their name, always the cheapest meals. They become the focus of Koller’s scientific attention when he deviates one day from his usual path through the park, leading him to come upon the cheap-eaters and to realize that they must be the focal piece of his years-long, unwritten study of physiognomy. The narrator, a former school friend of Koller’s, tells of his relationship with Koller in a single unbroken paragraph that is both dizzying and absorbing. In Koller, the narrator observes a “gradually ever-growing and utterly exclusive interest in thought . . . . We can get close to such a person, but if we come into contact with him we will be repelled.” Written in Bernhard’s hyperbolic, darkly comic style, The Cheap-Eaters is a study of the limits of language and thought.
127 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
About the author
Thomas Bernhard
290 books2,174 followersThomas Bernhard was an Austrian writer who ranks among the most distinguished German-speaking writers of the second half of the 20th century.
Although internationally he's most acclaimed because of his novels, he was also a prolific playwright. His characters are often at work on a lifetime and never-ending major project while they deal with themes such as suicide, madness and obsession, and, as Bernhard did, a love-hate relationship with Austria. His prose is tumultuous but sober at the same time, philosophic by turns, with a musical cadence and plenty of black humor.
He started publishing in the year 1963 with the novel Frost. His last published work, appearing in the year 1986, was Extinction. Some of his best-known works include The Loser (about a student's fictionalized relationship with the pianist Glenn Gould), Wittgenstein's Nephew, and Woodcutters.
Although internationally he's most acclaimed because of his novels, he was also a prolific playwright. His characters are often at work on a lifetime and never-ending major project while they deal with themes such as suicide, madness and obsession, and, as Bernhard did, a love-hate relationship with Austria. His prose is tumultuous but sober at the same time, philosophic by turns, with a musical cadence and plenty of black humor.
He started publishing in the year 1963 with the novel Frost. His last published work, appearing in the year 1986, was Extinction. Some of his best-known works include The Loser (about a student's fictionalized relationship with the pianist Glenn Gould), Wittgenstein's Nephew, and Woodcutters.
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November 17, 2017
Μια μέρα ο Κόλερ πήγε βόλτα στο πάρκο Τύρκενσαντς κι εκεί από καθαρή τύχη βρισκόταν και ο υαλοβιομήχανος Βέλερ. Από ακόμα μεγαλύτερη τύχη στο πάρκο βρισκόταν και ο σκύλος του υαλοβιομήχανου Βέλερ. Ο σκύλος του υαλοβιομήχανου Βέλερ έφαγε το πόδι του Κόλερ, το αριστερό πόδι, για να εξηγούμεθα. Κι από τότε όλα στη ζωή του Κόλερ άλλαξαν προς το καλύτερο. Βέβαια στην ευτυχή αυτή κατάληξη της ζωής του Κόλερ έπαιξε ρόλο κι ένα άλλο, θεμελιώδους σημασίας περιστατικό. Όντας με ένα πόδι λιγότερο, και εξυψωμένος πλέον στην οντολογική κλίμακα βάσει της κοσμοθεωρίας του, όπου δεν είναι του παρόντος η περαιτέρω ανάλυσή της, αποφάσισε να πάει να φάει το μεσημεριανό του σε ένα δημοτικό μαγειρείο, κατά την προσφιλή του συνήθεια. Αλλά δεν πήγε όπως συνήθιζε στο μαγειρείο της Παλιάς Φλαμουριάς. Από κάποια ευτυχή παρόρμηση απόφάσισε να πάει και να φάει το μεσημεριανό του στο Μαγειρείο της Παλιάς Βελανιδιάς. Και εκεί συνέβη ένα άλλο συνταρακτικό γεγονός. Ο Κόλερ πρόσεξε για πρώτη φορά τους τέσσερις φτηνοφαγάδες που σύχναζαν εκεί, διαλέγοντας πάντα τα φτηνότερα πιάτα στο μενού (εξ' ου και το παρανόμι) τον Άιντσιχ, τον Γκόλντσμιντ, τον Γκριλ και τον Βένινγκερ. Και τότε συνειδητοποίησε την τεράστια σημασία που είχαν οι τέσσερις Φτηνοφαγάδες, οι προαναφερόμενοι Άιντσιχ, Γκόλντσμιντ, Γκριλ και Βένινγκερ για την εξέλιξη της επιστημονικής του εργασίας επάνω στην Φυσιογνωμική. Κι όλα αυτά, γιατί ο σκύλος του υαλοβιομήχανου Βέλερ, στο πάρκο του Τύρκενσαντς είχε όρεξη για ανθρώπινο κρέας και ο ευλογημένος από την τύχη Κόλερ βρέθηκε στον δρόμο του. Αυτά είναι. Και κάπως έτσι δικαιώνεται το σοφό ρητό “αν έχει τύχη διάβαινε και ριζικό περπάτει” μόνο που στην περίπτωση του Κόλερ αυτό συνεπάγεται ένα βαθμό δυσκολίας, αλλά τί σημασία έχει η απώλεια ενός υλικού μέλους μπροστά στην ολοκλήρωση ενός πνευματικού ανθρώπου; Καμία σημασία θα απαντούσε ο Κόλερ, ο σοφός Κόλερ, ο Κόλερ ο επιστήμων, ο Κόλερ ο άνθρωπος του πνεύματος. Ο Κόλερ.
Αλλά αυτή δεν είναι η ιστορία του Κόλερ. Ούτε την έχει γράψει ο Κόλερ, ούτε μας την αφηγείται ο ίδιος. Αυτή είναι η ιστορία του φίλου το Κόλερ, αυτός είναι ο αφηγητής της ιστορίας, για τον οποίο λίγα πράγματα γνωρίζουμε, γνώρισε τον Κόλερ στο φαρμακείο της οδού Χάζεναουερ, ήταν συμμαθητές στο Γυμνάσιο, και είναι τραπεζικός υπάλληλος. Και κάτι ακόμα που δεν αναφέρεται σε κανένα σημείο του έργου, αλλά είναι η ουσία του έργου, είναι πως ο φίλος του Κόλερ αγαπάει τον Κόλερ με μια αρρωστημένη αφοσίωση, ακόμα κι όταν δεν μπορεί να τον υποφέρει. Είναι μια ανορθόξα ειπωμένη, ανορθόδοξη ιστορία αγάπης, ανάμεσα σε δύο ανορθόδοξους ανθρώπους που μέσα στη λόξα τους δεν μπορούν να ζήσουν ο ένας χωρίς τον άλλο. Ο φίλος του Κόλερ (κι αυτό μπορεί κάποιος να το διαπιστώσει μόνο όταν φτάσει το τέλος της ιστορίας) διασώζει τον Κόλερ, γιατί ο Κόλερ είναι ο λόγος ύπαρξης του φίλου του Κόλερ. Και πιστεύω πως αυτό που συνέβη στον Κόλερ, όχι στην αρχή αλλά στο τέλος της ιστορίας δεν είναι δα και τόσο φοβερό όσο αυτό που συνέβη στον φίλο του Κόλερ, εξαιτίας αυτού που συνέβη στον ίδιο τον Κόλερ, όχι στην αρχή αλλά στο τέλος της ιστορίας.
Πρώτη φορά βλέπω τόση καμουφλαρισμένη τρυφερότητα και χιούμορ κάτω από τόσες στρώσεις φαινομενικού κυνισμού. Σε βιβλίο. Αυτή είναι η μοναδική πρωτοτυπία του έργου, να κρύβει δηλαδή την ουσία όχι πίσω από όσα λέει, αλλά πίσω από όσα δεν λέει.
Αλλά αυτή δεν είναι η ιστορία του Κόλερ. Ούτε την έχει γράψει ο Κόλερ, ούτε μας την αφηγείται ο ίδιος. Αυτή είναι η ιστορία του φίλου το Κόλερ, αυτός είναι ο αφηγητής της ιστορίας, για τον οποίο λίγα πράγματα γνωρίζουμε, γνώρισε τον Κόλερ στο φαρμακείο της οδού Χάζεναουερ, ήταν συμμαθητές στο Γυμνάσιο, και είναι τραπεζικός υπάλληλος. Και κάτι ακόμα που δεν αναφέρεται σε κανένα σημείο του έργου, αλλά είναι η ουσία του έργου, είναι πως ο φίλος του Κόλερ αγαπάει τον Κόλερ με μια αρρωστημένη αφοσίωση, ακόμα κι όταν δεν μπορεί να τον υποφέρει. Είναι μια ανορθόξα ειπωμένη, ανορθόδοξη ιστορία αγάπης, ανάμεσα σε δύο ανορθόδοξους ανθρώπους που μέσα στη λόξα τους δεν μπορούν να ζήσουν ο ένας χωρίς τον άλλο. Ο φίλος του Κόλερ (κι αυτό μπορεί κάποιος να το διαπιστώσει μόνο όταν φτάσει το τέλος της ιστορίας) διασώζει τον Κόλερ, γιατί ο Κόλερ είναι ο λόγος ύπαρξης του φίλου του Κόλερ. Και πιστεύω πως αυτό που συνέβη στον Κόλερ, όχι στην αρχή αλλά στο τέλος της ιστορίας δεν είναι δα και τόσο φοβερό όσο αυτό που συνέβη στον φίλο του Κόλερ, εξαιτίας αυτού που συνέβη στον ίδιο τον Κόλερ, όχι στην αρχή αλλά στο τέλος της ιστορίας.
Πρώτη φορά βλέπω τόση καμουφλαρισμένη τρυφερότητα και χιούμορ κάτω από τόσες στρώσεις φαινομενικού κυνισμού. Σε βιβλίο. Αυτή είναι η μοναδική πρωτοτυπία του έργου, να κρύβει δηλαδή την ουσία όχι πίσω από όσα λέει, αλλά πίσω από όσα δεν λέει.
May 13, 2012
Die Billigesser (The Cheap-Eaters) is the most overlooked (or perhaps forgotten) novel in the Bernhard œuvre. Even with the recent surge in Berhard's popularity (Suhrkamp/Vintage reprinting everything), it remains out of print even in the original German. The one English translation (released in 1990—which oddly still lists Bernhard as living) was published by the UK-based Quartet Books as a limited, hardcover-only first edition. It was never reprinted. As such, unless you have access to a large university library (or are willing to shell out $300+), you'll probably never get a chance to read it, which is a terrible shame, as it's really quite an extraordinary little book.
Die Billigesser marks the beginning of Bernhard's final period, shedding the bleaker, dense middle period works (Das Kalkwerk, Korrektur, Ja) for the lighter, more comedic pieces (the Arts Trilogy—Beton/Wittgensteins Neffe excluded) that began appearing in the early eighties. This is, of course, not to say that Bernhard's output suddenly became cheery (if anything, he became more curmudgeonly), but there is a noticeable difference in the late period works (tempering the sorrow/nihilism/rage of the early and middle period pieces with an enveloping Galgenhumor that makes the ever-present tragic undercurrents somewhat easier to bear).
The content of the book is standard Bernhard fare: intellectual obsession/fixation on a particular goal/subject, mental and physical stagnation/debilitation/destruction, frustration, failure, death—it's all here, so one already acquainted with the standard Bernhardian themes will neither be surprised or disappointed. The text concerns itself with a certain Koller, who, after a certain unfortunate dog bite, loses a leg and becomes a philosopher. To be fair, Koller was always something of a thinker, but did not really come into his own (to be able to take a thought to its logical conclusion) until after becoming a cripple. The dog bite (which Koller describes incessantly as the necessary turning point), which occurred sixteen years before the start of the text, allows Koller to live a comfortable existence, as the (wealthy) owner of the dog is now required (by law) to pay 200,000 schillings (about $22,000) each month as compensation for Koller's debility. This sudden windfall affords Koller a life of semi-leisure, wherein he gives free rein to his increasingly obsessive, hermetic thoughts, and from these thoughts comes his Theory of Physiognomy. Much like Konrad in Das Kalkwerk, he has the entire work (more or less) written out in his head, but is unable to commit it to paper, as he realizes that as soon as a such a thought (or theory) is put into so many words, it becomes impure, is rendered unusable (or is outright destroyed) immediately, so that these thoughts, these ideas, this potentially epoch-making opus must, necessarily, remain perfect in the strongbox of the (his) mind, forever out of reach. Koller's Theory of Physiognomy—which concerns itself not only with his physiognomy, but the totality of art and nature—will not be complete until he thoroughly and exhaustively describes every aspect of the physiognomies of the eponymous Billigesser (a group of four rather down-and-out men who meet regularly at the Vienna Public Kitchen, whose cheap, buffet-style meals appeal to them. It was at the VPK that Koller, immediately after losing his leg, first encountered them. He befriended them and eventually became a regular at their table; their presences and personalities fascinated him, and before long, he realized that they were to be the centerpiece of his theory. Of course, being your typical Bernhard protagonist, he never manages to complete his essay on the Billigesser, and without this essay, is unable to turn his theory into a reality.
What makes this book unique is the way in which it was written: using a meticulous, overly logical prose style, (which adds to its purely ironic nature), in many ways, it reads almost like a parody of the earlier works, in that the content of the early and middle period pieces (their complexity and subtleness) is shot through a filter of self-awareness (Bernhard aping Bernhard), to the extent that it simply becomes absurd. The novel takes the masterpiece-stuck-inside-the-head idea (from Das Kalkwerk), and the obsessiveness/functional blindness of Korrektur to their absolute limits, and the result is simultaneously hilarious and infuriating. There is no sustained rant here, which also differs from the Bernhard most of us know and love; in its place, there are a series of recollections and observations (by the narrator) of Koller and his Theory of Physiognomy (how the idea first came to him, how he is unable to exist without constantly asserting his intellectual presence/dominance, how he will just simply die if he is unable to get this work out of his head and onto paper, etc). Everything changes once Koller and the narrator sit down in a tavern; here Koller adumbrates the more or less banal and depressing lives of the Billigesser: Weninger, the businessman, (and owner of a vinegar bottling plant), whose strange and shady dealings (described by Koller as opaque transactions) often got him into trouble with the law (the customs officials), eventually leading to a brief spell in a state prison; Goldschmidt, the quiet Jewish bookseller, described by Koller as the most intellectual member of the Billigesser (Koller almost views him as an (intellectual) equal, and this man occupies a very special place in Koller's heart/existence; though they often argue, a mutual understanding is felt between them); Grill, the self-made man, who rose from an impoverished Tyrolian childhood to a fairly comfortable living as a wholesale ironmonger, and who was dealt a crushing blow when his young wife, the person who meant more to him than anything in the world, died of (what the doctors termed) a strange, unexplored disease. Grill always held these doctors responsible for her death, and rarely speaks of anything other than his wife and her tragic end; and Einzig, the university professor, whose closeted homosexual inclinations provide him with a sense of inferiority, resulting in his insistence on being addressed as von Einzig, despite having no official association with the old and noble family of that name. A Carinthian of exceedly ambiguous origin(s), he is perhaps the least likable of the four, as his pettiness and status obsession rendered him (for a while, at least) an outcast among the other Billigesser. Eventually, however, the others see through the façade, and take pity on this wounded, self-loathing man, whose fondness for (and knowledge of) exotic birds endears him to Koller.
It is from these brief descriptions that Koller attempts to structure his Billigesser physiognomy thesis. What's strange, too, is the narrator's relationship with Koller. Despite knowing one another since their early years, their relationship has often been a non-relationship, marred by lengthy periods of mutual revulsion and disinterest; one would hardly call them friends, though a powerful, indefinable magnetism always seems to draw them back to each other/into each other's company. The narrator, Koller explains, is the only one in the world [who's] worthy of hearing [his] theory, the only one worthy of hearing him speak about his theory. The narrator, despite feeling intellectually inferior to (and quite openly envying) Koller, nevertheless lets himself be used by Koller for his listening ability.
Naturally he could never have been anyone else, just as I could never be anyone else [...] he had never wished to be anyone else, whereas I have very often wished to be someone else. I have very often wished to be him, but he had never wished to be me.
Taken out of context, these words become much less affecting, but still... the sadness and alienation that rests at the heart of any Bernhard novel makes itself known (felt) here. To read this long, meandering rant about inferiority and the inevitable comparisons that we make between ourselves and others... to have it conclude ...but he never wished to be me... hurts in a way that's simultaneously understood (immediately), and yet difficult to describe (something that we necessarily lack words for).
After describing the four Billigesser, Koller realizes that his task is only just beginning; he can't really describe (logically exhaust) the physiognomies of the Billigesser in (spoken) words alone, so he rushes home. Shortly thereafter, the narrator learns of Koller's traumatic injury (falling down the stairs leading up to his apartment), and hears that he's since slipped into a coma; he is not expected to recover. Everything that had been leading up to his monumental theory, indeed his entire thinking life had all been for nothing, and it's here that the story ends. The tone here becomes light and almost fablelike, and that's what makes the (unsurprising) conclusion all the more strange, what fills it with a potent, lingering melancholy. How Thomas Bernhard manages to elicit such sympathy from the reader for such a thoroughly unlikable, abrasive protagonist—a tactic that manages to sidestep (or negate) the traditional role of [the] protagonist—something that goes against all the established rules of conventional narrative—is something that is singularly Bernhardian.
I should include, if only for its truthfulness, the riff on booksellers (during the Goldschmidt vignette):
He had become a bookseller because, on the one hand, he was enough of a masochist for that purpose, and because, on the other, an uncle, a brother of his mother's, had left the bookshop to him. Naturally he was aware, every day and in effect all the time he had kept the bookshop, of the historical and intellectual idling associated with such an occupation for better or worse, but he had come to terms with it and when he felt sufficiently nauseated by the products he had been selling for the past three decades, he would, now and again, find refuge in one of those historic sentences which a crazy so-called poet or thinker had written in evidence of his craziness. For a long time, however, there had no longer been any books capable of saving him, but only sentences, individual sentences from Novalis, for instance, from Montaigne, from Spinoza, or from Pascal, which he had to clutch at from time to time in order not to go under. Booksellers, he said, were to be pitied more than anyone else, because on them, more than on anything else, rested the whole hideousness and meanness of human history and the whole helplessness and pitifulness of art and because they had to be permanently afraid of being crushed by that anti-human load. The bookseller who takes his trade seriously was to be pitied more than any other human being because day after day and ceaselessly he was confronted with the absolute pointlessness of everything that was ever written and because, more than anyone else, he experienced the world as hell, Goldschmidt had told Koller. Yet Goldschmidt was one of those very few booksellers to whom the concept of bookseller was still applicable, because booksellers like Goldschmidt, who took their trade seriously and who understood bookselling not as an ordinary business but actually still as a form of intellectual activity and as a devoted service to history and literature, had become almost totally extinct. The anti-intellectual hostility which dominated everything today, Koller said, had also, or especially, engulfed the booksellers in Europe and probably also those in the rest of the world.
This is a wonderful, transitional Bernhard novel, and it's a terrible shame that it's been so overshadowed by his other works, and, at the same time, equally neglected by Anglophones and German speakers alike.
Die Billigesser marks the beginning of Bernhard's final period, shedding the bleaker, dense middle period works (Das Kalkwerk, Korrektur, Ja) for the lighter, more comedic pieces (the Arts Trilogy—Beton/Wittgensteins Neffe excluded) that began appearing in the early eighties. This is, of course, not to say that Bernhard's output suddenly became cheery (if anything, he became more curmudgeonly), but there is a noticeable difference in the late period works (tempering the sorrow/nihilism/rage of the early and middle period pieces with an enveloping Galgenhumor that makes the ever-present tragic undercurrents somewhat easier to bear).
The content of the book is standard Bernhard fare: intellectual obsession/fixation on a particular goal/subject, mental and physical stagnation/debilitation/destruction, frustration, failure, death—it's all here, so one already acquainted with the standard Bernhardian themes will neither be surprised or disappointed. The text concerns itself with a certain Koller, who, after a certain unfortunate dog bite, loses a leg and becomes a philosopher. To be fair, Koller was always something of a thinker, but did not really come into his own (to be able to take a thought to its logical conclusion) until after becoming a cripple. The dog bite (which Koller describes incessantly as the necessary turning point), which occurred sixteen years before the start of the text, allows Koller to live a comfortable existence, as the (wealthy) owner of the dog is now required (by law) to pay 200,000 schillings (about $22,000) each month as compensation for Koller's debility. This sudden windfall affords Koller a life of semi-leisure, wherein he gives free rein to his increasingly obsessive, hermetic thoughts, and from these thoughts comes his Theory of Physiognomy. Much like Konrad in Das Kalkwerk, he has the entire work (more or less) written out in his head, but is unable to commit it to paper, as he realizes that as soon as a such a thought (or theory) is put into so many words, it becomes impure, is rendered unusable (or is outright destroyed) immediately, so that these thoughts, these ideas, this potentially epoch-making opus must, necessarily, remain perfect in the strongbox of the (his) mind, forever out of reach. Koller's Theory of Physiognomy—which concerns itself not only with his physiognomy, but the totality of art and nature—will not be complete until he thoroughly and exhaustively describes every aspect of the physiognomies of the eponymous Billigesser (a group of four rather down-and-out men who meet regularly at the Vienna Public Kitchen, whose cheap, buffet-style meals appeal to them. It was at the VPK that Koller, immediately after losing his leg, first encountered them. He befriended them and eventually became a regular at their table; their presences and personalities fascinated him, and before long, he realized that they were to be the centerpiece of his theory. Of course, being your typical Bernhard protagonist, he never manages to complete his essay on the Billigesser, and without this essay, is unable to turn his theory into a reality.
What makes this book unique is the way in which it was written: using a meticulous, overly logical prose style, (which adds to its purely ironic nature), in many ways, it reads almost like a parody of the earlier works, in that the content of the early and middle period pieces (their complexity and subtleness) is shot through a filter of self-awareness (Bernhard aping Bernhard), to the extent that it simply becomes absurd. The novel takes the masterpiece-stuck-inside-the-head idea (from Das Kalkwerk), and the obsessiveness/functional blindness of Korrektur to their absolute limits, and the result is simultaneously hilarious and infuriating. There is no sustained rant here, which also differs from the Bernhard most of us know and love; in its place, there are a series of recollections and observations (by the narrator) of Koller and his Theory of Physiognomy (how the idea first came to him, how he is unable to exist without constantly asserting his intellectual presence/dominance, how he will just simply die if he is unable to get this work out of his head and onto paper, etc). Everything changes once Koller and the narrator sit down in a tavern; here Koller adumbrates the more or less banal and depressing lives of the Billigesser: Weninger, the businessman, (and owner of a vinegar bottling plant), whose strange and shady dealings (described by Koller as opaque transactions) often got him into trouble with the law (the customs officials), eventually leading to a brief spell in a state prison; Goldschmidt, the quiet Jewish bookseller, described by Koller as the most intellectual member of the Billigesser (Koller almost views him as an (intellectual) equal, and this man occupies a very special place in Koller's heart/existence; though they often argue, a mutual understanding is felt between them); Grill, the self-made man, who rose from an impoverished Tyrolian childhood to a fairly comfortable living as a wholesale ironmonger, and who was dealt a crushing blow when his young wife, the person who meant more to him than anything in the world, died of (what the doctors termed) a strange, unexplored disease. Grill always held these doctors responsible for her death, and rarely speaks of anything other than his wife and her tragic end; and Einzig, the university professor, whose closeted homosexual inclinations provide him with a sense of inferiority, resulting in his insistence on being addressed as von Einzig, despite having no official association with the old and noble family of that name. A Carinthian of exceedly ambiguous origin(s), he is perhaps the least likable of the four, as his pettiness and status obsession rendered him (for a while, at least) an outcast among the other Billigesser. Eventually, however, the others see through the façade, and take pity on this wounded, self-loathing man, whose fondness for (and knowledge of) exotic birds endears him to Koller.
It is from these brief descriptions that Koller attempts to structure his Billigesser physiognomy thesis. What's strange, too, is the narrator's relationship with Koller. Despite knowing one another since their early years, their relationship has often been a non-relationship, marred by lengthy periods of mutual revulsion and disinterest; one would hardly call them friends, though a powerful, indefinable magnetism always seems to draw them back to each other/into each other's company. The narrator, Koller explains, is the only one in the world [who's] worthy of hearing [his] theory, the only one worthy of hearing him speak about his theory. The narrator, despite feeling intellectually inferior to (and quite openly envying) Koller, nevertheless lets himself be used by Koller for his listening ability.
Naturally he could never have been anyone else, just as I could never be anyone else [...] he had never wished to be anyone else, whereas I have very often wished to be someone else. I have very often wished to be him, but he had never wished to be me.
Taken out of context, these words become much less affecting, but still... the sadness and alienation that rests at the heart of any Bernhard novel makes itself known (felt) here. To read this long, meandering rant about inferiority and the inevitable comparisons that we make between ourselves and others... to have it conclude ...but he never wished to be me... hurts in a way that's simultaneously understood (immediately), and yet difficult to describe (something that we necessarily lack words for).
After describing the four Billigesser, Koller realizes that his task is only just beginning; he can't really describe (logically exhaust) the physiognomies of the Billigesser in (spoken) words alone, so he rushes home. Shortly thereafter, the narrator learns of Koller's traumatic injury (falling down the stairs leading up to his apartment), and hears that he's since slipped into a coma; he is not expected to recover. Everything that had been leading up to his monumental theory, indeed his entire thinking life had all been for nothing, and it's here that the story ends. The tone here becomes light and almost fablelike, and that's what makes the (unsurprising) conclusion all the more strange, what fills it with a potent, lingering melancholy. How Thomas Bernhard manages to elicit such sympathy from the reader for such a thoroughly unlikable, abrasive protagonist—a tactic that manages to sidestep (or negate) the traditional role of [the] protagonist—something that goes against all the established rules of conventional narrative—is something that is singularly Bernhardian.
I should include, if only for its truthfulness, the riff on booksellers (during the Goldschmidt vignette):
He had become a bookseller because, on the one hand, he was enough of a masochist for that purpose, and because, on the other, an uncle, a brother of his mother's, had left the bookshop to him. Naturally he was aware, every day and in effect all the time he had kept the bookshop, of the historical and intellectual idling associated with such an occupation for better or worse, but he had come to terms with it and when he felt sufficiently nauseated by the products he had been selling for the past three decades, he would, now and again, find refuge in one of those historic sentences which a crazy so-called poet or thinker had written in evidence of his craziness. For a long time, however, there had no longer been any books capable of saving him, but only sentences, individual sentences from Novalis, for instance, from Montaigne, from Spinoza, or from Pascal, which he had to clutch at from time to time in order not to go under. Booksellers, he said, were to be pitied more than anyone else, because on them, more than on anything else, rested the whole hideousness and meanness of human history and the whole helplessness and pitifulness of art and because they had to be permanently afraid of being crushed by that anti-human load. The bookseller who takes his trade seriously was to be pitied more than any other human being because day after day and ceaselessly he was confronted with the absolute pointlessness of everything that was ever written and because, more than anyone else, he experienced the world as hell, Goldschmidt had told Koller. Yet Goldschmidt was one of those very few booksellers to whom the concept of bookseller was still applicable, because booksellers like Goldschmidt, who took their trade seriously and who understood bookselling not as an ordinary business but actually still as a form of intellectual activity and as a devoted service to history and literature, had become almost totally extinct. The anti-intellectual hostility which dominated everything today, Koller said, had also, or especially, engulfed the booksellers in Europe and probably also those in the rest of the world.
This is a wonderful, transitional Bernhard novel, and it's a terrible shame that it's been so overshadowed by his other works, and, at the same time, equally neglected by Anglophones and German speakers alike.
December 8, 2020
Basit bir hikayeyi kullandığı özgün yazım tarzıyla ilginç kılmış yazar. Anlatıcı, kendisini “zihin insanı” olarak tanımlayan arkadaşının öyküsünü anlatırken kendisini de anlatıyor. Katip Bartleby’nin on misli negatiflikte ve ondan sevimsiz olan roman (veya anlatı) kahramanı Koller, felsefi düşüncelerini varoluştan nihilizme kadar tepe tepe kullanıyor.
Çevirisinin çok zor olabileceğini düşündüğüm “Ucuzayiyenler” zor değilse bile kolay bir okuma da değil, hatta yazarın tekniği gereği yapılan tekrarlarla yorucu da olabiliyor. Hayatı ciddiye almalı mı, yoksa ucuzayiyenlerden mi olmalı karar T. Bernhard sevginize bağlı.
Çevirisinin çok zor olabileceğini düşündüğüm “Ucuzayiyenler” zor değilse bile kolay bir okuma da değil, hatta yazarın tekniği gereği yapılan tekrarlarla yorucu da olabiliyor. Hayatı ciddiye almalı mı, yoksa ucuzayiyenlerden mi olmalı karar T. Bernhard sevginize bağlı.
June 21, 2020
Tutta la natura, tutta la storia
Nella Cucina Pubblica Viennese, Koller incontra i Mangia a poco, quattro uomini che si frequentano ogni giorno per consumare il menù più frugale e conveniente, in una ordinaria iterazione. L'osservazione di questa umana quotidianità si pone in antitesi con l'ossessione antica di scrivere un trattato scientifico totale, di specie fisiognomica, in modo che l'invalidità che ha caratterizzato tutta la sua esistenza sia ricompensata dal riconoscimento di una talentuosa genialità, così a lungo ambita e coltivata. I quattro uomini sono un commerciante, un libraio, un impiegato e un docente. Per Koller, il caso si è mutato in destino nel momento in cui ha cambiato l'antica abitudine di dirigersi, al parco, verso il vecchio frassino, preferendo invece la strada della monumentale quercia, e imprimendo così alla propria storia una fatale e irreversibile deviazione. Il suo pensare filosofico consiste nel pensare il pensiero, nel più completo isolamento, investigando il mondo dello spirito, afflitto da un cronico dolore agli occhi. Noi tutti ci avviciniamo alla fine, riflette Koller. Infuria una battaglia tra intelligenza e follia, mentre si vive costantemente al di sopra delle proprie possibilità, concedendosi di esistere e condannandosi a un esistere soli e abbandonati da tutti. Così, esonerato dalla necessità di guadagnarsi il pane, Koller sente il rimprovero muto del mondo, oltre la soglia di sopportabilità, sospinto fino all'occhio di Dio. Precipitando, senza coscienza, attraverso un lungo paragrafo senza capoversi, in un infinito abisso scientifico. Bernhard, al tavolo distante di una letteratura circolare.
“La vita o l'esistenza non sono altro che l'incessante e in effetti ininterrotto, disperato tentativo di salvarsi da tutto sotto tutti gli aspetti possibili, cercando scampo nel futuro che ogni volta altro non fa se non riaprire questo identico, infinito processo. La massa rifiuta già il singolo pensiero, figuriamoci l'attività del pensare, perché altrimenti ne sarebbe annientata all'istante, e così abbiamo a che fare con una massa completamente spensierata che in fondo non si oppone a nulla, ma si oppone sempre all'attività del pensiero”.
Nella Cucina Pubblica Viennese, Koller incontra i Mangia a poco, quattro uomini che si frequentano ogni giorno per consumare il menù più frugale e conveniente, in una ordinaria iterazione. L'osservazione di questa umana quotidianità si pone in antitesi con l'ossessione antica di scrivere un trattato scientifico totale, di specie fisiognomica, in modo che l'invalidità che ha caratterizzato tutta la sua esistenza sia ricompensata dal riconoscimento di una talentuosa genialità, così a lungo ambita e coltivata. I quattro uomini sono un commerciante, un libraio, un impiegato e un docente. Per Koller, il caso si è mutato in destino nel momento in cui ha cambiato l'antica abitudine di dirigersi, al parco, verso il vecchio frassino, preferendo invece la strada della monumentale quercia, e imprimendo così alla propria storia una fatale e irreversibile deviazione. Il suo pensare filosofico consiste nel pensare il pensiero, nel più completo isolamento, investigando il mondo dello spirito, afflitto da un cronico dolore agli occhi. Noi tutti ci avviciniamo alla fine, riflette Koller. Infuria una battaglia tra intelligenza e follia, mentre si vive costantemente al di sopra delle proprie possibilità, concedendosi di esistere e condannandosi a un esistere soli e abbandonati da tutti. Così, esonerato dalla necessità di guadagnarsi il pane, Koller sente il rimprovero muto del mondo, oltre la soglia di sopportabilità, sospinto fino all'occhio di Dio. Precipitando, senza coscienza, attraverso un lungo paragrafo senza capoversi, in un infinito abisso scientifico. Bernhard, al tavolo distante di una letteratura circolare.
“La vita o l'esistenza non sono altro che l'incessante e in effetti ininterrotto, disperato tentativo di salvarsi da tutto sotto tutti gli aspetti possibili, cercando scampo nel futuro che ogni volta altro non fa se non riaprire questo identico, infinito processo. La massa rifiuta già il singolo pensiero, figuriamoci l'attività del pensare, perché altrimenti ne sarebbe annientata all'istante, e così abbiamo a che fare con una massa completamente spensierata che in fondo non si oppone a nulla, ma si oppone sempre all'attività del pensiero”.
July 6, 2018
Right from the start, he said, he had never made things too easy for himself, seeing that everyone was of course ceaselessly being seduced into making things too easy for himself, and in effect was time and again and continually making things too easy for himself. He had, even as a child, possibly at first still quite unconsciously, resolved to live at the highest possible degree of difficulty, which to this day he has never failed to do.
Thomas Bernhard is, for me and perhaps alongside WG Sebald, the greatest writer of the 2nd half of the 20th Century. Reading the out of print The Cheap Eaters, a perfect 50th birthday present from a kind friend, was a bittersweet moment for me, as this completes my reading of Thomas Bernhard's fiction available in English. But then I hopefully have the next 50 years to re-read them all.
For completeness the novels in English:
Frost (1963), translated by Michael Hofmann (2006)
Gargoyles (Verstörung, 1967), translated by Richard and Clara Winston (1970)
The Lime Works (Das Kalkwerk, 1970), translated by Sophie Wilkins (1973)
Correction(Korrektur, 1975), translated by Sophie Wilkins (1979)
Yes (Ja, 1978), translated by Ewald Osers (1991)
The Cheap Eaters (Die Billigesser, 1980), translated by Ewald Osers (1990)
Concrete(Beton, 1982), translated by David McLintock (1984)
Wittgenstein's Nephew (Wittgensteins Neffe, 1982), translated by David McLintock (1988)
The Loser (Der Untergeher, 1983), translated by Jack Dawson (1991)
Woodcutters(Holzfällen: Eine Erregung, 1984), translated by Ewald Osers (1985) and as Woodcutters, by David McLintock (1988)
Old Masters: A Comedy(Alte Meister. Komödie, 1985), translated by Ewald Osers (1989)
Extinction(Auslöschung, 1986), translated by David McLintock (1995)
On The Mountain(In der Höhe, written 1959, published 1989), translated by Russell Stockman (1991)
as well as short-stories, plays, poetry and perhaps the peak of his work, the memoir, published in one volume in English, Gathering Evidence.
It is notable how many different translators have been used to tackle Bernhard's work (perhaps the relentlessness of the prose wears them down). This isn't a case where one English translator has created a distinct English voice for an author, but it is a tribute to the distinctiveness of Bernhard's prose that the voice cuts consistently through.
Of works I have read, I note Ewald Osers (The Cheap Eaters, Yes & Old Masters, also an earlier translation of Woodcutters), David McLintock (Concrete, Wittgenstein's Nephew, Extinction & Woodcutters), Sophie Wilkins (Lime Works & Correction), Martin Chalmers (Prose and also Victor Halfwit), Peter Jansen (Three Novellas - Amras), Kenneth Northcott (Voice Imitators & Three Novellas - Playing Watten & Walking), Michael Hoffman (Frost), Richard and Clara Winston (Gargoyle), Laura Lindgren (Thomas Bernhard: 3 days), James Reidel (Goethe Dies), Jack Dawson (Loser), Carol Brown Janeway (My Prizes), Meredith Oakes and Andrea Tierney (Heldenplatz), Russell Stockman (On the Mountain). And in addition I'm aware of translations by Gita Honneger (author also of a biography of Bernhard), Michael Mitchell, David Horrocks, Peter Eyre & Tom Cairns (various stories, plays and poems), as well as Douglas Robertson (various unauthorised translations, including The Cheap Eaters - http://shirtysleeves.blogspot.com/201...).
The Cheap Eaters itself is perhaps not Bernhard's strongest work, but that still leaves it far above the prose of lesser mortals, and it is a fine example of his approach.
The novel tells of Koller, a monomaniacal scientific philosopher, his lifetime work a theory of physiognomy. His work has two key breakthroughs - first when he is bitten by a dog while walking in a park, leading to the amputation of his leg, and, four months later, on his discharge from hospital he goes to the Vienna Public Kitchen ('VPK') on Döblinger Hauptstrasse, where he finds himself falling it with a group of four men he had previously not associated with, which he dubs 'the cheap-eaters'.
Undoubtedly, that had been his first thought, they had always specialised in eating whatever was the cheapest dish at the VPK and, in line with that thought, he had, as a matter of course, labelled these people at the corner table the cheap-eaters, and thus, from the very start, they had always been the cheap eaters to him; they had always eaten the cheapest dishes to be found at the VPK, he, Koller, has not been mistaken, they had always on principle eaten the cheapest dishes during the time he had frequented the VPK, and, like himself, they had never and under no circumstances ever chose any but the cheapest category of dishes, although, as was customary at the VPK, there was always the choice of four categories of dishes; even before he had sat down at the cheap-eaters table he had had this impression of the cheap-eaters’ persistent concentration on the cheapest dishes at the VPK; this he had been able to read at once for his own purposes from the very way the cheap-eaters held their bodies and moved their bodies, subsequently also from the way they held their minds and moved their minds; they had been cheap-eaters born and personified, just as he himself was a born and personified cheap-eater. Time and again he described their physiognomies as the physiognomies of born and personified cheap-eaters.
They, in turn, welcome his attention as they are in need of someone who would save them from their undoubtedly prolonged monotony and lethargy, and a cripple of their own age and, moreover, a cheap eater, must have been exactly what suited them, although he has to earn his acceptance in their group: he has been obliged, gradually, to prove himself an equal as a cheap-eater. He spends several years eating daily with them in the VPK, choosing, as required, from the cheapest option on the menu.
Now, sixteen years later, while taking a stroll in the same Viennese Wertheimstein park, he had abruptly and all of a sudden gone, not, as what his habit, to the Old Ash but to the Old Oak where he re-encounters Einzig and Goldschimdt, Grill and Weninger, the cheap-eaters, whome he had forgotten for many years, which somehow provides him with the decisive breakthrough in his work.
The Cheap Eaters, as often in a Bernhard novel, is relayed indirectly, here by an unnamed narrator who has been closely acquainted with Koller, although one would struggle to describe them as friends, since their schooldays together, and who relays to us Koller's own recollections and reports:
I was struck by the acuteness of his recollection with which he was able to report, or to use his phrase, adumbrate to me alone his reappearance at the VPK on Doblinger Hauptstrasse, knowing that this reappearance at the VPK was now more than sixteen years behind us, even though, as a result of his so-called physiognomical studies, he was bound to have an especially acute recall and, above all, must have more particularly remembered the facts relating to the theory of physiognomy and, to a much greater extent, the peculiarities of the persons and personalities communicated to me by adumbration, as well as their indirect and direct communication. And the attempt I am making here can again consist only of my recollecting his relevant recollections and of my adumbrating his adumbrations.
The novel is only 127 pages long but with typically dense and circular Bernhardian prose, as Koller sets out the path he has followed with his characteristic mathematical thoroughness. The narrator both admires and to an extent fears him, seeing Koller as the archetype of those that:
think and intensify their thoughts and ignore anything outside their thoughts until they are crushed and stifled and destroyed by that passion. Koller practiced such a fatal procedure in exemplary fashion
Although in turn Koller queries why the vast bulk of the population fritter away their intellect, instead advocating treating ones intellectual resources much as a merchant would treat their wealth:
He had always been shocked by the fact that most people expended their intellectual assets very early and found themselves, unexpectedly and all of a sudden, faced with nothing, so that for the rest of their lives they vegetated on the so-called intellectual subsidence minimum.
The Cheap Eaters is relatively free of the trademark Bernhard rants, although Koller does reserve particular scorn for collective enterprises such as kin (he despised like nothing on earth any so-called sense of belonging together) and the education system:
He had to expend a high proportion of his energies on resisting the Gymnasium and its mechanism of destruction, resisting school as such, which, opposed to the nature of each individual, existed solely to undermine and destroy the nature of each individual and progressively annihilate it.
The humour in the book lies in the fact that Koller is so busy explaining how he has made a decisive intellectual breakthrough that he never actually gets around to describing what it is. Indeed it takes until past page 100 for us to even gets character sketches of the cheap-eaters who, after all, were only thought material, that is philosophical material for him. He leaves the narrator promising that next time they meet, perhaps even the next day, he will, with the scene set, now describe the cheap-eaters in more detail and quite how they provide the breakthrough. Except (and in Douglas Robertson's translation):
But he had never gotten around to delivering this lecture, because that very same evening, on account of a severe head injury that he had sustained upon tripping over his prosthetic leg and tumbling down the staircase in the Krottenbachstrasse, he had been admitted to the University clinic in a state of complete unconsciousness, after which point, as I learned from his doctors, there had been absolutely no prospect of keeping him alive. The Cheap-Eaters had been lost forever like so many other intellectual products whose devisers have spoken to us about them.
Wonderful - perhaps 4 stars on a stand-alone basis but as a fitting end to my reading of Bernhard's work, 5 stars.
Thomas Bernhard is, for me and perhaps alongside WG Sebald, the greatest writer of the 2nd half of the 20th Century. Reading the out of print The Cheap Eaters, a perfect 50th birthday present from a kind friend, was a bittersweet moment for me, as this completes my reading of Thomas Bernhard's fiction available in English. But then I hopefully have the next 50 years to re-read them all.
For completeness the novels in English:
Frost (1963), translated by Michael Hofmann (2006)
Gargoyles (Verstörung, 1967), translated by Richard and Clara Winston (1970)
The Lime Works (Das Kalkwerk, 1970), translated by Sophie Wilkins (1973)
Correction(Korrektur, 1975), translated by Sophie Wilkins (1979)
Yes (Ja, 1978), translated by Ewald Osers (1991)
The Cheap Eaters (Die Billigesser, 1980), translated by Ewald Osers (1990)
Concrete(Beton, 1982), translated by David McLintock (1984)
Wittgenstein's Nephew (Wittgensteins Neffe, 1982), translated by David McLintock (1988)
The Loser (Der Untergeher, 1983), translated by Jack Dawson (1991)
Woodcutters(Holzfällen: Eine Erregung, 1984), translated by Ewald Osers (1985) and as Woodcutters, by David McLintock (1988)
Old Masters: A Comedy(Alte Meister. Komödie, 1985), translated by Ewald Osers (1989)
Extinction(Auslöschung, 1986), translated by David McLintock (1995)
On The Mountain(In der Höhe, written 1959, published 1989), translated by Russell Stockman (1991)
as well as short-stories, plays, poetry and perhaps the peak of his work, the memoir, published in one volume in English, Gathering Evidence.
It is notable how many different translators have been used to tackle Bernhard's work (perhaps the relentlessness of the prose wears them down). This isn't a case where one English translator has created a distinct English voice for an author, but it is a tribute to the distinctiveness of Bernhard's prose that the voice cuts consistently through.
Of works I have read, I note Ewald Osers (The Cheap Eaters, Yes & Old Masters, also an earlier translation of Woodcutters), David McLintock (Concrete, Wittgenstein's Nephew, Extinction & Woodcutters), Sophie Wilkins (Lime Works & Correction), Martin Chalmers (Prose and also Victor Halfwit), Peter Jansen (Three Novellas - Amras), Kenneth Northcott (Voice Imitators & Three Novellas - Playing Watten & Walking), Michael Hoffman (Frost), Richard and Clara Winston (Gargoyle), Laura Lindgren (Thomas Bernhard: 3 days), James Reidel (Goethe Dies), Jack Dawson (Loser), Carol Brown Janeway (My Prizes), Meredith Oakes and Andrea Tierney (Heldenplatz), Russell Stockman (On the Mountain). And in addition I'm aware of translations by Gita Honneger (author also of a biography of Bernhard), Michael Mitchell, David Horrocks, Peter Eyre & Tom Cairns (various stories, plays and poems), as well as Douglas Robertson (various unauthorised translations, including The Cheap Eaters - http://shirtysleeves.blogspot.com/201...).
The Cheap Eaters itself is perhaps not Bernhard's strongest work, but that still leaves it far above the prose of lesser mortals, and it is a fine example of his approach.
The novel tells of Koller, a monomaniacal scientific philosopher, his lifetime work a theory of physiognomy. His work has two key breakthroughs - first when he is bitten by a dog while walking in a park, leading to the amputation of his leg, and, four months later, on his discharge from hospital he goes to the Vienna Public Kitchen ('VPK') on Döblinger Hauptstrasse, where he finds himself falling it with a group of four men he had previously not associated with, which he dubs 'the cheap-eaters'.
Undoubtedly, that had been his first thought, they had always specialised in eating whatever was the cheapest dish at the VPK and, in line with that thought, he had, as a matter of course, labelled these people at the corner table the cheap-eaters, and thus, from the very start, they had always been the cheap eaters to him; they had always eaten the cheapest dishes to be found at the VPK, he, Koller, has not been mistaken, they had always on principle eaten the cheapest dishes during the time he had frequented the VPK, and, like himself, they had never and under no circumstances ever chose any but the cheapest category of dishes, although, as was customary at the VPK, there was always the choice of four categories of dishes; even before he had sat down at the cheap-eaters table he had had this impression of the cheap-eaters’ persistent concentration on the cheapest dishes at the VPK; this he had been able to read at once for his own purposes from the very way the cheap-eaters held their bodies and moved their bodies, subsequently also from the way they held their minds and moved their minds; they had been cheap-eaters born and personified, just as he himself was a born and personified cheap-eater. Time and again he described their physiognomies as the physiognomies of born and personified cheap-eaters.
They, in turn, welcome his attention as they are in need of someone who would save them from their undoubtedly prolonged monotony and lethargy, and a cripple of their own age and, moreover, a cheap eater, must have been exactly what suited them, although he has to earn his acceptance in their group: he has been obliged, gradually, to prove himself an equal as a cheap-eater. He spends several years eating daily with them in the VPK, choosing, as required, from the cheapest option on the menu.
Now, sixteen years later, while taking a stroll in the same Viennese Wertheimstein park, he had abruptly and all of a sudden gone, not, as what his habit, to the Old Ash but to the Old Oak where he re-encounters Einzig and Goldschimdt, Grill and Weninger, the cheap-eaters, whome he had forgotten for many years, which somehow provides him with the decisive breakthrough in his work.
The Cheap Eaters, as often in a Bernhard novel, is relayed indirectly, here by an unnamed narrator who has been closely acquainted with Koller, although one would struggle to describe them as friends, since their schooldays together, and who relays to us Koller's own recollections and reports:
I was struck by the acuteness of his recollection with which he was able to report, or to use his phrase, adumbrate to me alone his reappearance at the VPK on Doblinger Hauptstrasse, knowing that this reappearance at the VPK was now more than sixteen years behind us, even though, as a result of his so-called physiognomical studies, he was bound to have an especially acute recall and, above all, must have more particularly remembered the facts relating to the theory of physiognomy and, to a much greater extent, the peculiarities of the persons and personalities communicated to me by adumbration, as well as their indirect and direct communication. And the attempt I am making here can again consist only of my recollecting his relevant recollections and of my adumbrating his adumbrations.
The novel is only 127 pages long but with typically dense and circular Bernhardian prose, as Koller sets out the path he has followed with his characteristic mathematical thoroughness. The narrator both admires and to an extent fears him, seeing Koller as the archetype of those that:
think and intensify their thoughts and ignore anything outside their thoughts until they are crushed and stifled and destroyed by that passion. Koller practiced such a fatal procedure in exemplary fashion
Although in turn Koller queries why the vast bulk of the population fritter away their intellect, instead advocating treating ones intellectual resources much as a merchant would treat their wealth:
He had always been shocked by the fact that most people expended their intellectual assets very early and found themselves, unexpectedly and all of a sudden, faced with nothing, so that for the rest of their lives they vegetated on the so-called intellectual subsidence minimum.
The Cheap Eaters is relatively free of the trademark Bernhard rants, although Koller does reserve particular scorn for collective enterprises such as kin (he despised like nothing on earth any so-called sense of belonging together) and the education system:
He had to expend a high proportion of his energies on resisting the Gymnasium and its mechanism of destruction, resisting school as such, which, opposed to the nature of each individual, existed solely to undermine and destroy the nature of each individual and progressively annihilate it.
The humour in the book lies in the fact that Koller is so busy explaining how he has made a decisive intellectual breakthrough that he never actually gets around to describing what it is. Indeed it takes until past page 100 for us to even gets character sketches of the cheap-eaters who, after all, were only thought material, that is philosophical material for him. He leaves the narrator promising that next time they meet, perhaps even the next day, he will, with the scene set, now describe the cheap-eaters in more detail and quite how they provide the breakthrough. Except (and in Douglas Robertson's translation):
But he had never gotten around to delivering this lecture, because that very same evening, on account of a severe head injury that he had sustained upon tripping over his prosthetic leg and tumbling down the staircase in the Krottenbachstrasse, he had been admitted to the University clinic in a state of complete unconsciousness, after which point, as I learned from his doctors, there had been absolutely no prospect of keeping him alive. The Cheap-Eaters had been lost forever like so many other intellectual products whose devisers have spoken to us about them.
Wonderful - perhaps 4 stars on a stand-alone basis but as a fitting end to my reading of Bernhard's work, 5 stars.
October 7, 2023
Obwohl ich Wien inzwischen recht gut kenne, war ich bedauerlicherweise nie im Gasthaus zum Auge Gottes, war weder im Türkenschanzpark noch im Wertheimsteinpark und habe auch nie in einer Niederlassung der WÖK, den ehemaligen “Wiener Öffentlichen Küchen” gegessen, ging allerdings mit größter anzunehmender Wahrscheinlichkeit 1975 in der Döblinger Hauptstraße am Auge Gottes vorbei, als das Haus noch nicht der S-Bahn zum Opfer gefallen war, da ich mich, damals noch wienunkundig, zu Fuss bis weit in den 19. Bezirk hinein verirrte und schließlich dank der stadteinwärts immer kleiner werdenden Hausnummern über die Döblinger Hauptstraße, die Nussdorfer Straße und die Währinger Straße zurück zum Schottentor rettete, ohne das Auge Gottes jedoch bewusst wahrgenommen zu haben, was sich sicherlich anders verhalten hätte, wenn ich Die Billigesser, in denen das Auge Gottes eine nicht unwesentliche Rolle spielt, gelesen hätte.
Aus dem selben Grund wusste ich 1975 auch nichts von der WÖK, einer sozialen Einrichtung des roten Wien, in der jedermann billig essen konnte, und in deren Filiale in der Döblinger Hauptstraße ich auf meinem Irrweg für wenige Schillinge billig essen hätte können, was in meiner prekären Lage deutlich nahrhafter und bequemer gewesen wäre, als mich mit einer Leberkässemmel für den selben Betrag auf einer Parkbank zu begnügen.
Einen Besuch im Türkenschanzpark und im Wertheimsteinpark, die beide ebenso wie das Auge Gottes und die WÖK in Die Billigesser eine nicht unwesentliche Rolle spielen, werde ich nachholen und speziell für diesen Zweck auf meiner Heimreise in wenigen Tagen in Wien einen Zwischenstopp einlegen.
Die Geistfeindlichkeit der Augegottesatmosphäre - die Formulierung gleicht zwar sprachlich einer Sahnetrüffel, war jedoch Koller, dem Protagonisten in Die Billigesser, zutiefst zuwider, weshalb er die WÖK dem Auge Gottes vorzog. Es sei ihm naturgemäß die größte Überwindung gewesen, auch nur daran zu denken, das Auge Gottes aufzusuchen, ein Akt der Selbstverleugnung, tatsächlich in das Auge Gottes hineinzugehn, sich im Auge Gottes niederzusetzen unter allen diesen stumpfsinnigen, geistfeindlichen fleisch- und gemüsefressenden Augegottesmenschen, die er zurecht verachte.
Noch dazu hingen im Auge Gottes die Bilder schief an der Wand, was ihm, Koller, auf die Dauer ein Ärgernis bedeute, so der Erzähler. Offenbar gäbe es zwei Arten von Menschen auf der Welt, die einen, denen dies nichts ausmache und die anderen, die die Tatsache schief hängender Bilder schier wahnsinnig mache. Es mag hier niemanden interessieren, aber diesbezüglich kann ich mich Koller nur anschliessen, die Tatsache schief hängender Bilder macht auch mich schier wahnsinnig.
Koller, der Geistesmensch, und der Erzähler sitzen ungefähr ab der Hälfte des Buches und wider jede Erwartung im Auge Gottes, Koller hat den Erzähler geradezu genötigt, in das Auge Gottes hineinzugehn, obwohl ihm das Auge Gottes mit seiner Geistlosigkeit zuwider ist, da ausgerechnet jetzt der entscheidende und lange Zeit vorbereitete Augenblick gekommen sei, dem Erzähler das Resultat seiner, Kollers, Geistesarbeit mitzuteilen, was in seiner Dringlichkeit keinen Aufschub dulde. Er, Koller, sitzt mit dem Rücken zur Wand, streckt sein Kunstbein aus und spricht über die Billigesser, Einzig, Grill, Goldschmidt und Weninger, mit denen er täglich in der WÖK zu Mittag esse, was nur einem glücklichen Zufall, der seinem, Kollers, Geistesleben die entscheidende Wende gegeben habe, zu verdanken sei. Weil er vor Jahren im Wertheimsteinpark aus einer spontanen Regung heraus zur alten Eiche ging, statt zur alten Esche, zu der er normalerweise zu gehen pflegte, erinnerte er sich bei der alten Eiche an die Billigesser und erkannte, dass in diesen die Lösung seiner Geistesarbeit läge, nämlich dem Entwurf des entscheidenden Kapitels seiner Physiognomik, das er vor der endgültigen Niederschrift seit Jahren in seinem Geist zu verwirklichen suchte und das sich bis zu dieser entscheidenden Eingebung bei der alten Eiche nur ergebnislos in seinem Geist drehte. Die Billigesser im WÖK erwiesen sich endlich als die geeigneten Anschauungsobjekte, um an ihnen seine Physiognomik zur Reife zu bringen und zu vollenden.
Eine vor der Abrissbirne der Immobilienspekulanten lobenswerterweise gerettete und äußerst illustre Örtlichkeit, die in Die Billigesser eine Rolle spielt, habe ich bisher übergangen, nämlich das Zögernitz, eine nahe dem Wertheimsteinpark gelegene, sehr stattliche Biedermeierresidenz mit Casino, Café-Restaurant und einem wunderschönen Gastgarten, in dem sich schon seit Johann Strauß die betuchte und bessere Gesellschaft vergnügte und in der vor allem der Erzähler viele Jahre tagtäglich zu Gast gewesen sei, immer mit einer Schale Kaffee und den neuesten Zeitungen. Das Zögernitz ist nicht direkt Schauplatz in Die Billigesser, vielmehr wird vom Zögernitz und seinen Besuchern erzählt, weil auch Koller früher im Zögernitz verkehrt habe, eines Tages jedoch seine Besuche eingestellt habe, ja einstellen habe müssen, um von den Zögernitzmenschen, wie er es bezeichnete, nicht vernichtet zu werden, denn sie, die Zögernitzmenschen, hätten, so er, von diesem bestimmten Zeitpunkt nichts anderes mehr im Kopf gehabt, als die Vernichtung seiner Person [...].
[Das Zögernitz - historische Ansicht]
Koller hasse die Zögernitzmenschen, er hege ihnen gegenüber einen ununterbrochenen Geisteshass, weil sie ihm seine monatliche Rente neideten, die er auf Grund seiner Versehrung erhalte, ja ihm geradezu den Hundebiss neideten, in dessen Folge ihm sein Bein amputiert werden musste. Seine totale Vernichtung aber hätten sie von dem Augenblick an betrieben, als er sich als Krüppel auch noch eine Dampfschifffahrt in die Wachau geleistet habe und sich für diesen Zweck auch noch einen englischen Regenmantel angeschafft habe, der doppelt so teuer war, als ein gewöhnlicher Regenmantel. Dass er die Dampfschifffahrt dann gar nicht angetreten habe, spielt keine Rolle, ist allerdings für einen Bernhardschen Helden symptomatisch, ja geradezu naturgemäß.
Erst zum Ende hin doziert Koller im Auge Gottes endlich über die Billigesser. In der Einleitung skizziert er kurz seine Tischgenossen im WÖK und deren Charaktere, den halbseidenen Kaufmann Weninger, den intellektuellen jüdischen Buchhändler Goldschmidt, den Eisenwarenmagazineur Grill und den angeblich adeligen Professor Einzig. Es scheint wiederum naturgemäß, dass Koller den eigentlichen Kern seiner Vorlesung über die Physiognomik seiner Studienobjekte nicht zu Ende bringt, ja nicht einmal anfängt. Plötzlich erkennt er, dass das Auge Gottes dafür ein gänzlich ungeeigneter Ort sei, stellt dem Erzähler die Fortsetzung am nächsten Tag im Wertheimsteinpark in Aussicht und stürmt Hals über Kopf aus dem Lokal. Dem Schicksal dieser tragischen Figur gemäß, oder auch naturgemäß, findet eine Fortsetzung am nächsten Tag und auch sonst nie wieder statt.
Koller selbst lernen wir nie direkt kennen. In typischer Bernhardscher Manier berichtet der Erzähler aus seiner Erinnerung, deutet an und vermutet. Koller erhält sein Gesicht im Nimbus des Konjunktivs, er ist ein typisches Exemplar aus Bernhards Freakshow wahnwitziger Figuren und es lohnt, sich über diesen seltsamen Vogel einige Gedanken zu machen:
Manche Rezipienten bezeichnen ihn als Versager: Er hat große Pläne, schiebt deren Umsetzung permanent auf und rechtfertigt sich auch noch mit selbstherrlichen Ausreden. Er hält sich für einen Geistesmenschen, stellt sich über seine Mitmenschen, bringt aber in Wirklichkeit nichts auf die Reihe. Diese Deutung ist definitiv zu kurz gegriffen und sagt mehr über die Rezipienten aus, als über unseren Helden.
Andere sehen ihn als Querulanten, als Sonderling oder auch als Opfer, das in sein Unglück sehenden Auges hineinläuft. So äußert der Erzähler einmal die Vermutung, er könnte den Hundebiss und damit seine lebenslange Rente geradezu provoziert haben, um ohne den Druck der Erwerbsarbeit seiner Obsession nachgehen zu können. Die Vielfältigkeit der Deutungsmöglichkeiten macht die Figur natürlich besonders interessant. Ich sehe vor allem die Tragik des Menschen, der nach Vollendung strebt, die niemals zu erreichen ist und naturgemäß im Desaster und im Tod enden muss. Die Wesensverwandtschaft Kollers mit Konrad aus Das Kalkwerk ist nicht zu übersehen.
Bernhard probt seine obligate Tirade gegen das Bildungs- und Erziehungssystem auch an der Figur Kollers. Angeblich rebellierte Koller schon in seiner Kindheit gegen Eltern, Schule und alle gesellschaftlichen Kräfte, diesen ganzen Zerstörungsmechanismus, der nur dazu geschaffen sei, die Natur jedes einzelnen zu zersetzen und zu zerstören und in weiterer Folge zu vernichten.
Interessant ist, dass Bernhards Figuren aus dieser Situation heraus nie Verbündete in ihrer Rebellion finden, sie sind immer Einsame und enden oft in völliger Isolation. Die Billigesser im WÖK sind für Koller nur Studienobjekte. Weil er schon seit Jahren keinen Menschenverkehr mehr pflege [...], so würde er sich selbst niemals eingestehen, dass sie eigentlich sein soziales Refugium darstellen, sein Ersatz für Familie, Freunde, Kollegen. Den Erzähler akzeptiert er als Zuhörer, quasi als Ersatz für das Papier, auf das ihm seine Theorie festzuhalten nicht gelingt, solange der geistige Rangunterschied und die einseitige Richtung der Kommunikation nicht in Frage gestellt wird. Er hält sich für genial, ob er es tatsächlich ist oder nicht, wissen wir nicht. Die Umsetzung seiner Genialität wird durch seine soziale Pathologie nachhaltig verhindert.
Bernhard stellt der Erzählung ein Motto von Novalis voran: “Zur Welt suchen wir einen Entwurf - dieser Enwurf sind wir selbst.”
Nur in der Erforschung unseres Selbst können wir die Welt erklären und uns gleichzeitig darin definieren. Nur dem Geistesmenschen ist die dazu notwendige Innensicht gegeben, und das hat er sich sein Leben lang, ganz alleine und gegen alle Widerstände der dumpfen Masse zu erkämpfen. Das Selbst ist auch noch ein sehr schlüpfriges Ding, das uns wie ein Fisch immer dann entschwindet, wenn wir glauben, es gefasst zu haben: Ein dauernder rekursiver Kampf bis zum Tod.
So deutet der Erzähler die Worte Kollers an: Der einzelne habe, genau genommen, immer alles gegen sich und er habe immer gegen alles mit sich selbst fertig zu werden in einem Prozeß, welcher naturgemäß immer nur ein tödlicher Prozeß sein könne. Das Leben oder die Existenz seien nichts anderes, als der unaufhörliche und tatsächlich ununterbrochene verzweifelte Versuch, sich in allen möglichen Beziehungen aus allem herauszuretten in die Zukunft, welche immer wieder nur diesen gleichen unendlichen tödlichen Prozeß eröffne.
Aus dem selben Grund wusste ich 1975 auch nichts von der WÖK, einer sozialen Einrichtung des roten Wien, in der jedermann billig essen konnte, und in deren Filiale in der Döblinger Hauptstraße ich auf meinem Irrweg für wenige Schillinge billig essen hätte können, was in meiner prekären Lage deutlich nahrhafter und bequemer gewesen wäre, als mich mit einer Leberkässemmel für den selben Betrag auf einer Parkbank zu begnügen.
Einen Besuch im Türkenschanzpark und im Wertheimsteinpark, die beide ebenso wie das Auge Gottes und die WÖK in Die Billigesser eine nicht unwesentliche Rolle spielen, werde ich nachholen und speziell für diesen Zweck auf meiner Heimreise in wenigen Tagen in Wien einen Zwischenstopp einlegen.
Die Geistfeindlichkeit der Augegottesatmosphäre - die Formulierung gleicht zwar sprachlich einer Sahnetrüffel, war jedoch Koller, dem Protagonisten in Die Billigesser, zutiefst zuwider, weshalb er die WÖK dem Auge Gottes vorzog. Es sei ihm naturgemäß die größte Überwindung gewesen, auch nur daran zu denken, das Auge Gottes aufzusuchen, ein Akt der Selbstverleugnung, tatsächlich in das Auge Gottes hineinzugehn, sich im Auge Gottes niederzusetzen unter allen diesen stumpfsinnigen, geistfeindlichen fleisch- und gemüsefressenden Augegottesmenschen, die er zurecht verachte.
Noch dazu hingen im Auge Gottes die Bilder schief an der Wand, was ihm, Koller, auf die Dauer ein Ärgernis bedeute, so der Erzähler. Offenbar gäbe es zwei Arten von Menschen auf der Welt, die einen, denen dies nichts ausmache und die anderen, die die Tatsache schief hängender Bilder schier wahnsinnig mache. Es mag hier niemanden interessieren, aber diesbezüglich kann ich mich Koller nur anschliessen, die Tatsache schief hängender Bilder macht auch mich schier wahnsinnig.
Koller, der Geistesmensch, und der Erzähler sitzen ungefähr ab der Hälfte des Buches und wider jede Erwartung im Auge Gottes, Koller hat den Erzähler geradezu genötigt, in das Auge Gottes hineinzugehn, obwohl ihm das Auge Gottes mit seiner Geistlosigkeit zuwider ist, da ausgerechnet jetzt der entscheidende und lange Zeit vorbereitete Augenblick gekommen sei, dem Erzähler das Resultat seiner, Kollers, Geistesarbeit mitzuteilen, was in seiner Dringlichkeit keinen Aufschub dulde. Er, Koller, sitzt mit dem Rücken zur Wand, streckt sein Kunstbein aus und spricht über die Billigesser, Einzig, Grill, Goldschmidt und Weninger, mit denen er täglich in der WÖK zu Mittag esse, was nur einem glücklichen Zufall, der seinem, Kollers, Geistesleben die entscheidende Wende gegeben habe, zu verdanken sei. Weil er vor Jahren im Wertheimsteinpark aus einer spontanen Regung heraus zur alten Eiche ging, statt zur alten Esche, zu der er normalerweise zu gehen pflegte, erinnerte er sich bei der alten Eiche an die Billigesser und erkannte, dass in diesen die Lösung seiner Geistesarbeit läge, nämlich dem Entwurf des entscheidenden Kapitels seiner Physiognomik, das er vor der endgültigen Niederschrift seit Jahren in seinem Geist zu verwirklichen suchte und das sich bis zu dieser entscheidenden Eingebung bei der alten Eiche nur ergebnislos in seinem Geist drehte. Die Billigesser im WÖK erwiesen sich endlich als die geeigneten Anschauungsobjekte, um an ihnen seine Physiognomik zur Reife zu bringen und zu vollenden.
Eine vor der Abrissbirne der Immobilienspekulanten lobenswerterweise gerettete und äußerst illustre Örtlichkeit, die in Die Billigesser eine Rolle spielt, habe ich bisher übergangen, nämlich das Zögernitz, eine nahe dem Wertheimsteinpark gelegene, sehr stattliche Biedermeierresidenz mit Casino, Café-Restaurant und einem wunderschönen Gastgarten, in dem sich schon seit Johann Strauß die betuchte und bessere Gesellschaft vergnügte und in der vor allem der Erzähler viele Jahre tagtäglich zu Gast gewesen sei, immer mit einer Schale Kaffee und den neuesten Zeitungen. Das Zögernitz ist nicht direkt Schauplatz in Die Billigesser, vielmehr wird vom Zögernitz und seinen Besuchern erzählt, weil auch Koller früher im Zögernitz verkehrt habe, eines Tages jedoch seine Besuche eingestellt habe, ja einstellen habe müssen, um von den Zögernitzmenschen, wie er es bezeichnete, nicht vernichtet zu werden, denn sie, die Zögernitzmenschen, hätten, so er, von diesem bestimmten Zeitpunkt nichts anderes mehr im Kopf gehabt, als die Vernichtung seiner Person [...].
[Das Zögernitz - historische Ansicht]
Koller hasse die Zögernitzmenschen, er hege ihnen gegenüber einen ununterbrochenen Geisteshass, weil sie ihm seine monatliche Rente neideten, die er auf Grund seiner Versehrung erhalte, ja ihm geradezu den Hundebiss neideten, in dessen Folge ihm sein Bein amputiert werden musste. Seine totale Vernichtung aber hätten sie von dem Augenblick an betrieben, als er sich als Krüppel auch noch eine Dampfschifffahrt in die Wachau geleistet habe und sich für diesen Zweck auch noch einen englischen Regenmantel angeschafft habe, der doppelt so teuer war, als ein gewöhnlicher Regenmantel. Dass er die Dampfschifffahrt dann gar nicht angetreten habe, spielt keine Rolle, ist allerdings für einen Bernhardschen Helden symptomatisch, ja geradezu naturgemäß.
Erst zum Ende hin doziert Koller im Auge Gottes endlich über die Billigesser. In der Einleitung skizziert er kurz seine Tischgenossen im WÖK und deren Charaktere, den halbseidenen Kaufmann Weninger, den intellektuellen jüdischen Buchhändler Goldschmidt, den Eisenwarenmagazineur Grill und den angeblich adeligen Professor Einzig. Es scheint wiederum naturgemäß, dass Koller den eigentlichen Kern seiner Vorlesung über die Physiognomik seiner Studienobjekte nicht zu Ende bringt, ja nicht einmal anfängt. Plötzlich erkennt er, dass das Auge Gottes dafür ein gänzlich ungeeigneter Ort sei, stellt dem Erzähler die Fortsetzung am nächsten Tag im Wertheimsteinpark in Aussicht und stürmt Hals über Kopf aus dem Lokal. Dem Schicksal dieser tragischen Figur gemäß, oder auch naturgemäß, findet eine Fortsetzung am nächsten Tag und auch sonst nie wieder statt.
Koller selbst lernen wir nie direkt kennen. In typischer Bernhardscher Manier berichtet der Erzähler aus seiner Erinnerung, deutet an und vermutet. Koller erhält sein Gesicht im Nimbus des Konjunktivs, er ist ein typisches Exemplar aus Bernhards Freakshow wahnwitziger Figuren und es lohnt, sich über diesen seltsamen Vogel einige Gedanken zu machen:
Manche Rezipienten bezeichnen ihn als Versager: Er hat große Pläne, schiebt deren Umsetzung permanent auf und rechtfertigt sich auch noch mit selbstherrlichen Ausreden. Er hält sich für einen Geistesmenschen, stellt sich über seine Mitmenschen, bringt aber in Wirklichkeit nichts auf die Reihe. Diese Deutung ist definitiv zu kurz gegriffen und sagt mehr über die Rezipienten aus, als über unseren Helden.
Andere sehen ihn als Querulanten, als Sonderling oder auch als Opfer, das in sein Unglück sehenden Auges hineinläuft. So äußert der Erzähler einmal die Vermutung, er könnte den Hundebiss und damit seine lebenslange Rente geradezu provoziert haben, um ohne den Druck der Erwerbsarbeit seiner Obsession nachgehen zu können. Die Vielfältigkeit der Deutungsmöglichkeiten macht die Figur natürlich besonders interessant. Ich sehe vor allem die Tragik des Menschen, der nach Vollendung strebt, die niemals zu erreichen ist und naturgemäß im Desaster und im Tod enden muss. Die Wesensverwandtschaft Kollers mit Konrad aus Das Kalkwerk ist nicht zu übersehen.
Bernhard probt seine obligate Tirade gegen das Bildungs- und Erziehungssystem auch an der Figur Kollers. Angeblich rebellierte Koller schon in seiner Kindheit gegen Eltern, Schule und alle gesellschaftlichen Kräfte, diesen ganzen Zerstörungsmechanismus, der nur dazu geschaffen sei, die Natur jedes einzelnen zu zersetzen und zu zerstören und in weiterer Folge zu vernichten.
Interessant ist, dass Bernhards Figuren aus dieser Situation heraus nie Verbündete in ihrer Rebellion finden, sie sind immer Einsame und enden oft in völliger Isolation. Die Billigesser im WÖK sind für Koller nur Studienobjekte. Weil er schon seit Jahren keinen Menschenverkehr mehr pflege [...], so würde er sich selbst niemals eingestehen, dass sie eigentlich sein soziales Refugium darstellen, sein Ersatz für Familie, Freunde, Kollegen. Den Erzähler akzeptiert er als Zuhörer, quasi als Ersatz für das Papier, auf das ihm seine Theorie festzuhalten nicht gelingt, solange der geistige Rangunterschied und die einseitige Richtung der Kommunikation nicht in Frage gestellt wird. Er hält sich für genial, ob er es tatsächlich ist oder nicht, wissen wir nicht. Die Umsetzung seiner Genialität wird durch seine soziale Pathologie nachhaltig verhindert.
Bernhard stellt der Erzählung ein Motto von Novalis voran: “Zur Welt suchen wir einen Entwurf - dieser Enwurf sind wir selbst.”
Nur in der Erforschung unseres Selbst können wir die Welt erklären und uns gleichzeitig darin definieren. Nur dem Geistesmenschen ist die dazu notwendige Innensicht gegeben, und das hat er sich sein Leben lang, ganz alleine und gegen alle Widerstände der dumpfen Masse zu erkämpfen. Das Selbst ist auch noch ein sehr schlüpfriges Ding, das uns wie ein Fisch immer dann entschwindet, wenn wir glauben, es gefasst zu haben: Ein dauernder rekursiver Kampf bis zum Tod.
So deutet der Erzähler die Worte Kollers an: Der einzelne habe, genau genommen, immer alles gegen sich und er habe immer gegen alles mit sich selbst fertig zu werden in einem Prozeß, welcher naturgemäß immer nur ein tödlicher Prozeß sein könne. Das Leben oder die Existenz seien nichts anderes, als der unaufhörliche und tatsächlich ununterbrochene verzweifelte Versuch, sich in allen möglichen Beziehungen aus allem herauszuretten in die Zukunft, welche immer wieder nur diesen gleichen unendlichen tödlichen Prozeß eröffne.
May 31, 2017
Bernhard sözcüklerle başını döndürüyor insanın..
April 8, 2015
The only thing that tempts me to almost rate Die Billigesser a "4" is the fact that I really wanted to know the main character's (Koller) theory of physiognomy via his contact with the "cheap-eaters"!
On the way to qualifying this high rating of The Cheap Eaters even further, I must first take a moment to mention its narrative structure. The Cheap Eaters can truly be considered a "three part invention", as it can be discerned that it is "broken" into 3 semi-distinct movements, though as is typical of Bernhard, it appears, on the surface, to be an unbroken and interminable single paragraph. Roughly the first third can be said to be devoted to how Koller came to discover "the cheap-eaters" and was welcomed into their ranks, with special attention to how he was treated upon entering the VPK and seated among them. The middle and, for me, least compelling third was taken up by the narrator's seemingly dull ruminations on his relationship with Koller. Towards the end we have Koller's consideration of each of the--until then rather shadowy--cheap-eaters individually. The first and last thirds are what really what make this book standout as an essential one to understanding the nature of Bernhard's writing. At the very beginning of this review, I mentioned that I was (initially) disappointed to have been robbed by Bernhard's withholding of Koller's theory of physiognomy via his contact with the cheap-eaters; however, with his typically deft literary cunning, Berhard manages to redeem, not only the seemingly lacking middle third of the novel, but the entire work as a whole by allowing the realization to dawn upon the reader that it has been the narrator, Koller's so-called(!) friend, who has been delivering an account of Koller's own physiogomy all along! It is my feeling that this tricky maneuver on Bernhard's part fairly rockets this unjustly undervalued book in this writer's oeuvre into the realm of genius.
Thomas Bernhard's talent at painting abstract physiognomic portraits of his characters (and himself), much like Francis Bacon's paintings of his friends, are on full display here. Incidentally, I feel it is a shame that the recent reprints of Bernhard's novels did not feature paintings by Bacon, as I believe they would have been a fitting accompaniment to Bernhard's texts. For in the work of both of these great artists, the soul is straining right there on the surface, if only a sensitive observer can capture it in all its evanescent movement.
On the way to qualifying this high rating of The Cheap Eaters even further, I must first take a moment to mention its narrative structure. The Cheap Eaters can truly be considered a "three part invention", as it can be discerned that it is "broken" into 3 semi-distinct movements, though as is typical of Bernhard, it appears, on the surface, to be an unbroken and interminable single paragraph. Roughly the first third can be said to be devoted to how Koller came to discover "the cheap-eaters" and was welcomed into their ranks, with special attention to how he was treated upon entering the VPK and seated among them. The middle and, for me, least compelling third was taken up by the narrator's seemingly dull ruminations on his relationship with Koller. Towards the end we have Koller's consideration of each of the--until then rather shadowy--cheap-eaters individually. The first and last thirds are what really what make this book standout as an essential one to understanding the nature of Bernhard's writing. At the very beginning of this review, I mentioned that I was (initially) disappointed to have been robbed by Bernhard's withholding of Koller's theory of physiognomy via his contact with the cheap-eaters; however, with his typically deft literary cunning, Berhard manages to redeem, not only the seemingly lacking middle third of the novel, but the entire work as a whole by allowing the realization to dawn upon the reader that it has been the narrator, Koller's so-called(!) friend, who has been delivering an account of Koller's own physiogomy all along! It is my feeling that this tricky maneuver on Bernhard's part fairly rockets this unjustly undervalued book in this writer's oeuvre into the realm of genius.
Thomas Bernhard's talent at painting abstract physiognomic portraits of his characters (and himself), much like Francis Bacon's paintings of his friends, are on full display here. Incidentally, I feel it is a shame that the recent reprints of Bernhard's novels did not feature paintings by Bacon, as I believe they would have been a fitting accompaniment to Bernhard's texts. For in the work of both of these great artists, the soul is straining right there on the surface, if only a sensitive observer can capture it in all its evanescent movement.
December 22, 2014
But any thought not turned into written form was ultimately totally worthless, because it could have moved only its author, if anyone, and could not have made history, and he, naturally enough, had the ambition to make history, which had always been the prime prerequisite of any important, epoch-making study, as he said.
The thinking man's legs took a turn to the Old Ash rather than the Old Oak. To where the men of science-heads and math-hearts eat their cheapest thing on the menu from unshakeable principles. Koller is all brain noodles out of the frying pan. The other ways it could have gone didn't happen, couldn't have because they didn't (but what if it it hadn't?) and his dog-bites-man leg hobbles into their picture, becomes one of them, had always been one of them or in fact he wouldn't be there with them. I don't know why ordering the cheapest thing in the cheapest restaurant, the VPK, is anything (I've always found making my own food to be more cost effective than eating out). The willing eye on Koller first despised Koller, then the tables turned. Koller had always despised him, knew more than he did. Then he had admired the young boy in the school's pharmacy, orbited his abyss and losing sight of a leap. Curdling mother's milk in their restaurant homes. Koller in the intellectual's VPK and he of the breathless Divine Eye. Crooked pictures on the walls in the Divine Eye. Everybody knows your name if you're the ilk doesn't notice crooked pictures. I'm not an intellectual either. I call this a constant wrestling with instilling heartlessness. To aim to cock-eye the experience, forget the conveyor belt existence. It's everywhere and it knocks on the walls so work harder. Yawning black holes of violent rest. Find your alibi in something else than righteousness. What would be under the skin? Like that underneath, before mother earth answers back, or maybe in the settling again. I don't believe there's a great idea that is going to do anything anyway. To crunch on the shittiness under all walks of life. Koller squirms inside the belly of the Divine Eye, away from the closeness of the burgeoning physiognomy of the cheap-eaters. He realities his great idea in the opposite of his searching, what is going to be the final leap. I want to say it is earnestness, Koller's listener, but I want to say it is another nature of earnestness. If you saw it in on their face it would reach trembling hands. Rehearse all of the details, relive it and make sure you still really believe in it. In the Weller dog's victim he has an alibi. However the cheap-eaters go from Koller's natural place, to the grand not-accident of mental purpose. They first choose him and then he designs them. I don't care which is which, or if it is right or anyone is right. This isn't the first time I have envied from a helpless sighing place that outside to look to in Bernhard (and I don't really know it wasn't all really inside, a mind bending to believe in the merits of the VPK and the cheap-eaters. If so he could keep going, still taking lots of steps backwards to learn the way in the dark. Koller's cheap-eaters and why he loves each and one of them are there). In the here and now (forget history) there's a willed leap. The brain becomes a muscle just like the heart. Someone is the living great idea. I can get the heartlessness fired up and forget the mental-sickness on the same wavelength as the butterfly sickness. In the sensuousness of going over and over the VPK, Koller, the cheap-eaters, the dog with the teeth. The living proof.
Basically, at least from that incident onward, from the dog bite, he had divided the substance needed for his life into useful and useless, into substance useful for his mind and for his thinking, and into substance useless to his mind and to his thinking, allowing the useful into his mind and into his brain, but not the useless.
September 3, 2021
Se non ci fosse "Il soccombente", che è un libro ruffiano e la ruffianeria è ovviamente *inammissibile* nella poetica di Thomas Bernhard, sarebbe il peggior libro di Thomas Bernhard, per la ricorsività che diventa vizio e l'innesco davvero troppo tardivo. Va da sé che il secondo peggior libro di Thomas Bernhard è comunque un libro davvero molto bello.
April 7, 2023
One of Bernhard's masterpieces. First class.
June 18, 2020
Senryu Review:
Cracked cripple's theory
on phizzes of skint diners
missing from menu
Cracked cripple's theory
on phizzes of skint diners
missing from menu
January 30, 2021
Thomas Bernhard, edebi bir zalimdir(!). Unutma çabasında olduğumuz tüm kuytulaşmış yönelimlerimizi, zalimce alttan yukarı doğru çekip bir oyuna davet eden bir çocuk gibi bizi cezberek zulüm eder. Yalnızlığımızı kucağımıza atar, onun ile neler düşündüğümüzü hatırlatır. Yazarın en çarpıcı özelliklerinden biri; eserlerinde olan olayı başlangıçta bizi haberdar edip bundan sonraki bu olaya bağlı tüm yansımaları ruhsal bir paradigma eşliğinde vermesidir, günlük sıradan basit konulardan oluşan bir anlatı ile yola çıkıp bizi içinde kaybetmeyi amaç ediniyor. Bu kısa anlatıda da karakterin rutin yaşamında bir çalışmaya gönül verip onun için içten içe çaba sarf ederken bir parkta geçirdiği kaza ile sonrasında enteresan bir varoluşsal değişim söz konusudur.
April 13, 2021
A welcome new translation of Die Billigesser (1980), largely as the original translation by Ewald Osers (1990) is out of print and almost impossible to obtain at a sensible price (although I did buy myself a copy since Thomas Bernhard is perhaps my favourite author of the 2nd half of the 20th century).
Douglas Robertson previously published the translation on his blog (http://shirtysleeves.blogspot.com/) but it is wonderful to see it in print.
Highly recommended - as if everything Bernhard has written.
And as an update to my list of Bernhard translators:
Of books I've read these include....
Laura Lindgren (Thomas Bernhard: 3 days)
James Reidel (Goethe Dies)
Martin Chalmers (Prose, also Victor Halfwit)
Peter Jansen (Three Novellas - Amras)
Kenneth Northcott (Voice Imitators & Three Novellas - Playing Watten & Walking)
Michael Hoffman (Frost)
Richard and Clara Winston (Gargoyle)
Sophie Wilkins (Lime Works & Correction),
Ewald Osers (Yes, Cheap Eaters & Old Masters, also an earlier translation of Woodcutters)
David McLintock (Concrete, Wittgenstein's Nephew, Extinction & Woodcutters)
Jack Dawson (Loser)
Carol Brown Janeway (My Prizes)
Meredith Oakes and Andrea Tierney (Heldenplatz, also Elizabeth II)
Russell Stockman (On the Mountain)
Douglas Robertson (a new translation of The Cheap Eaters, and unauthorised pieces including The Italian).
And in addition I'm aware of translations of various stories, plays and poems by:
Gita Honneger (author also of a biography of Bernhard)
Michael Mitchell
David Horrocks
Neville & Stephen Plaice
Peter Eyre & Tom Cairns
Jan-Willem van den Bosch
Josef Glowa, Donald McManus & Susan Hurly-Glowa
Damion Searls
Peter Waugh
It is testament to the power and distinctiveness of Bernhard's narrative voice that it shines through consistently in the English.
Douglas Robertson previously published the translation on his blog (http://shirtysleeves.blogspot.com/) but it is wonderful to see it in print.
Highly recommended - as if everything Bernhard has written.
And as an update to my list of Bernhard translators:
Of books I've read these include....
Laura Lindgren (Thomas Bernhard: 3 days)
James Reidel (Goethe Dies)
Martin Chalmers (Prose, also Victor Halfwit)
Peter Jansen (Three Novellas - Amras)
Kenneth Northcott (Voice Imitators & Three Novellas - Playing Watten & Walking)
Michael Hoffman (Frost)
Richard and Clara Winston (Gargoyle)
Sophie Wilkins (Lime Works & Correction),
Ewald Osers (Yes, Cheap Eaters & Old Masters, also an earlier translation of Woodcutters)
David McLintock (Concrete, Wittgenstein's Nephew, Extinction & Woodcutters)
Jack Dawson (Loser)
Carol Brown Janeway (My Prizes)
Meredith Oakes and Andrea Tierney (Heldenplatz, also Elizabeth II)
Russell Stockman (On the Mountain)
Douglas Robertson (a new translation of The Cheap Eaters, and unauthorised pieces including The Italian).
And in addition I'm aware of translations of various stories, plays and poems by:
Gita Honneger (author also of a biography of Bernhard)
Michael Mitchell
David Horrocks
Neville & Stephen Plaice
Peter Eyre & Tom Cairns
Jan-Willem van den Bosch
Josef Glowa, Donald McManus & Susan Hurly-Glowa
Damion Searls
Peter Waugh
It is testament to the power and distinctiveness of Bernhard's narrative voice that it shines through consistently in the English.
May 23, 2016
Οι Φτηνοφαγάδες είναι το ιδανικό πρώτο βιβλίο για να εξοικειωθεί κανείς με τον κόσμο του Thomas Bernhard.Έναν κόσμο γεμάτο ευφυείς και ιδιαίτερα εκκεντρικούς χαρακτήρες.Εδώ πρόκειται για μία παρέα 4 ατόμων,που συχνάζουν στο Δημοτικό Μαγειρείο της Βιέννης κι επιλέγουν πάντα το φθηνότερο φαγητό.Αυτή τους η επιλογή δεν οφείλεται στην οικονομική τους κατάσταση ή σε κάποιο ελάττωμα τσιγκουνιάς.Το κάνουν για λόγους αρχής,όπως χαρακτηριστικά αναφέρει ο Κόλερ(ο 5ος της παρέας,που μας τους συστήνει μέσω της αφήγησής του και για τον οποίο οι τέσσερεις αυτοί άνθρωποι γίνονται αντικείμενο επιστημονικής μελέτης).Σε τι συνίστανται οι λόγοι αρχής,είναι κάτι που ο αναγνώστης το αποκρυπτογραφεί μόνος του,έχοντας μάθει ό,τι χρειάζεται να ξέρει για τα τέσσερα αυτά πρόσωπα.Ο Bernhard μας δίνει ακριβώς τόσα στοιχεία,όσα χρειάζονται για σκιαγραφήσουμε τις προσωπικότητες των Φτηνοφαγάδων.
Ο αφηγητής είναι ένας πρώην συμμαθητής(και φίλος;) του Κόλερ,δηλαδή του κεντρικού χαρακτήρα που έχει αφιερώσει όλη του τη ζωή στην εκπόνηση του έργου του "Φυσιογνωμική".Κύριο κεφάλαιο αυτού του έργου είναι οι Φτηνοφαγάδες κι έτσι καταλήγει ο Κόλερ να περιγράφει τα των Φτηνοφαγάδων στον αφηγητή.
Ο λόγος του Bernhard,αν και μακροπερίοδος,δεν κουράζει ούτε αποπροσανατολίζει τον αναγνώστη.Το βιβλίο διαβάζεται απνευστί,ενώ ταυτόχρονα εύχεσαι να μην τέλειωνε ποτέ.
Θα μπορούσα να γράφω ατέλειωτα γι αυτό το βιβλίο και για την εντύπωση που μου άφησε και πάλι δε θα κατάφερνα να μεταφέρω το μέγεθος του μεγαλείου που κρύβει.
Ένα σίγουρα μπορώ να πω.Πως σειρά έχουν τα υπόλοιπα της εργογραφίας του και πως βρήκα το νέο αγαπημένο μου συγγραφέα.
Ο αφηγητής είναι ένας πρώην συμμαθητής(και φίλος;) του Κόλερ,δηλαδή του κεντρικού χαρακτήρα που έχει αφιερώσει όλη του τη ζωή στην εκπόνηση του έργου του "Φυσιογνωμική".Κύριο κεφάλαιο αυτού του έργου είναι οι Φτηνοφαγάδες κι έτσι καταλήγει ο Κόλερ να περιγράφει τα των Φτηνοφαγάδων στον αφηγητή.
Ο λόγος του Bernhard,αν και μακροπερίοδος,δεν κουράζει ούτε αποπροσανατολίζει τον αναγνώστη.Το βιβλίο διαβάζεται απνευστί,ενώ ταυτόχρονα εύχεσαι να μην τέλειωνε ποτέ.
Θα μπορούσα να γράφω ατέλειωτα γι αυτό το βιβλίο και για την εντύπωση που μου άφησε και πάλι δε θα κατάφερνα να μεταφέρω το μέγεθος του μεγαλείου που κρύβει.
Ένα σίγουρα μπορώ να πω.Πως σειρά έχουν τα υπόλοιπα της εργογραφίας του και πως βρήκα το νέο αγαπημένο μου συγγραφέα.
April 13, 2021
I am not fond of star ratings. This is a 3.5 that inches its way toward a 4 over the final 25 pages or so to the closing which is a set-up but one I had not expected which then justifies the progress of the narrative which, in classic Bernhardian terms doubly, sometimes triply nested and convoluted. The story concerns Koller, a curious and unstable character who, due to the fortunate loss of a leg, has taken to dining with the "so-called" cheap-eaters, four men who eat together (cheaply) at the Vienna Public Kitchen. They have become the subject of his Physiognomy, an appropriately outdated pseudoscience that has consumed his attention for more than a decade. Koller's idiosyncratic qualities and his intellectual pursuit is recounted by a nameless childhood friend whose attraction to his subject is as curious and questionable as Koller himself.
A longer review can be found here: https://roughghosts.com/2021/04/13/ea...
A longer review can be found here: https://roughghosts.com/2021/04/13/ea...
February 28, 2021
Un Bernhard minore, ma pur sempre una lettura importante.
Chi non impiega fin da giovanissimo gran parte delle proprie energie per contrapporsi alla follia della massa, diventa inevitabilmente vittima dell'idiozia, diceva. Bisogna però ogni volta far fronte nello stesso tempo alla storia in quanto massa e al presente in quanto massa per poter sopravvivere, e solo pochissimi ci riescono.
La massa rifiuta già il singolo pensiero, figuriamoci l'attività del pensare, perché altrimenti ne sarebbe annientata all'istante, e così abbiamo a che fare con una massa completamente spensierata che in fondo non si oppone a nulla, ma si oppone sempre all'attività del pensiero.
Chi non impiega fin da giovanissimo gran parte delle proprie energie per contrapporsi alla follia della massa, diventa inevitabilmente vittima dell'idiozia, diceva. Bisogna però ogni volta far fronte nello stesso tempo alla storia in quanto massa e al presente in quanto massa per poter sopravvivere, e solo pochissimi ci riescono.
La massa rifiuta già il singolo pensiero, figuriamoci l'attività del pensare, perché altrimenti ne sarebbe annientata all'istante, e così abbiamo a che fare con una massa completamente spensierata che in fondo non si oppone a nulla, ma si oppone sempre all'attività del pensiero.
June 28, 2017
3.5/5
Bernhard her kitabında bu üslupla nasıl başa çıkabilmiş okudukça anlamakta zorlanıyorum. Bunu anlamakta gitgide zorlanmak ise hayatı boyunca sürekli suratını asarak gezdiğini düşündüğüm yazara olan takdirimi arttırıyor. Bence bir Wittgenstein'in Yeğeni, Beton, Eski Ustalar yoğunluğunda değil ama aksi Bernhard özlendiğinde okunabilir. 'Düşünce' insanı ile 'normal' insan arasındaki vurguları ise kitapta özellikle aklımda kalacak olan kısımlardan.
Bernhard her kitabında bu üslupla nasıl başa çıkabilmiş okudukça anlamakta zorlanıyorum. Bunu anlamakta gitgide zorlanmak ise hayatı boyunca sürekli suratını asarak gezdiğini düşündüğüm yazara olan takdirimi arttırıyor. Bence bir Wittgenstein'in Yeğeni, Beton, Eski Ustalar yoğunluğunda değil ama aksi Bernhard özlendiğinde okunabilir. 'Düşünce' insanı ile 'normal' insan arasındaki vurguları ise kitapta özellikle aklımda kalacak olan kısımlardan.
March 12, 2020
Mijn bespreking staat op rekto:verso: https://www.rektoverso.be/artikel/de-...
April 6, 2021
Artfully anticlimactic and certainly among the more whimsical, genuinely funny things Bernhard wrote in his long and prolific career. Lighter on the vitriol than in many of his other works, The Cheap-Eaters may actually serve as a good introduction for new readers who want to get into him but find themselves intimidated by his reputation for raging bleakness. But fair warning: even in his gentler moments, Bernhard still packs one hell of a punch.
Major thanks to Spurl Editions for bringing this back into print in a beautiful, affordable paperback and giving (relatively) un-moneyed peons like me a chance to finally read it.
Highly recommended.
Major thanks to Spurl Editions for bringing this back into print in a beautiful, affordable paperback and giving (relatively) un-moneyed peons like me a chance to finally read it.
Highly recommended.
August 30, 2024
Bernardhar’ı her okuyuşumda daha çok seviyorum. Ucuzayiyenler de bunun bir istisnası olmadı. Bernhard'ın diğer eserleri gibi anlatı iç içe geçmiş yapılarla dolambaçlı bir şekilde ilerliyor. Okuru aşina kıldığı bir zeminde yavaş yavaş ilerlerken, geri adımlarla bazı kısımları iyice pekiştirerek peyderpey eklenen ayrıntılarla bütünlüklü bir anlatı yaratıyor.
Her türlü bağlılık duygusunu hor gören, doğduğu andan beri “kitleyle mücadele ederek kendini yüksek bilime adayan” Koller, Türkenschanz Parkı’nda bir köpek tarafından ısırılarak sol bacağını kaybedince kendini tamamiyle fizyonomi çalışmalarına verir. Ailesi dahil sosyal bağlarını koparan Koller, bir gün parkta yaptığı yürüyüş sırasında yaşlı dişbudak ağacı yerine yaşlı meşe ağacına doğru yürürken VAM’da( Viyana Açık Mutfak) bir süredir aynı masayı paylaştığı dörtlüyü fizyonomi çalışmasının dördüncü bölümüne dahil ederek çalışmasının eksik parçasını tamamlayacağını düşünür. Müthiş bir buluşa imza attığını düşünerek kusursuz çalışmasını yıllarca kafasında taşır.
Deli mi dahi mi olduğu şüpheli Koller karakteri uzun paragraflarla tekrarlara yaslanan sarkastik bir dille betimleniyor. Romanın Koller’e taban tabana zıt bir karakter tarafından anlatılması da tipik bir Bernhard düzenlemesi olarak ortaya çıkıyor. Koller’e duyduğu hayranlığın altında ezilen fakat ona çekilmekten kurtulamayan anlatıcı okuyucunun alacağı pozisyonu da ister istemez etkiliyor.
Okur Koller’in Ucuzayiyenler çalışmasındaki ana temayı öğrenmek için kitabın sonuna kadar çekiliyor. Fakat bizi yine sürprizli bir son bekliyor.
Her türlü bağlılık duygusunu hor gören, doğduğu andan beri “kitleyle mücadele ederek kendini yüksek bilime adayan” Koller, Türkenschanz Parkı’nda bir köpek tarafından ısırılarak sol bacağını kaybedince kendini tamamiyle fizyonomi çalışmalarına verir. Ailesi dahil sosyal bağlarını koparan Koller, bir gün parkta yaptığı yürüyüş sırasında yaşlı dişbudak ağacı yerine yaşlı meşe ağacına doğru yürürken VAM’da( Viyana Açık Mutfak) bir süredir aynı masayı paylaştığı dörtlüyü fizyonomi çalışmasının dördüncü bölümüne dahil ederek çalışmasının eksik parçasını tamamlayacağını düşünür. Müthiş bir buluşa imza attığını düşünerek kusursuz çalışmasını yıllarca kafasında taşır.
Deli mi dahi mi olduğu şüpheli Koller karakteri uzun paragraflarla tekrarlara yaslanan sarkastik bir dille betimleniyor. Romanın Koller’e taban tabana zıt bir karakter tarafından anlatılması da tipik bir Bernhard düzenlemesi olarak ortaya çıkıyor. Koller’e duyduğu hayranlığın altında ezilen fakat ona çekilmekten kurtulamayan anlatıcı okuyucunun alacağı pozisyonu da ister istemez etkiliyor.
Okur Koller’in Ucuzayiyenler çalışmasındaki ana temayı öğrenmek için kitabın sonuna kadar çekiliyor. Fakat bizi yine sürprizli bir son bekliyor.
March 25, 2024
dafür, dass keiner der sätze, die immer nur aus den gleichen fünf wörtern immer neu und immer länger kombiniert zu sein scheinen, jemals enden will und man nie weiß, wo man die lektüre zuletzt unterbrach (natürlich verzichtet bernhard ganz konsequenz darauf, auch nur einen absatz im ganzen buch zu setzen), ensteht ein doch bemerkenswerter fluss. die akademische obsession der erzählerfigur erinnerte mich an yasushi inoues "die berg-azaleen auf dem hira-gipfel". es geschieht letztenendes doch einigermaßen überraschend, dass bernhard der erzählung so etwas wie eine story entlockt, und man bleibt mit dem gefühl, etwas über diese stadt (wien) gelernt zu haben, selbst wenn sich die erzählung (ohne irgendwo länger als einen nebensatz zu verweilen) nur zwischen den wiener öffentlichen küchen (wök), einer kneipe und einem park im neunzehnten bezirk hin- und herbewegt.
March 9, 2021
In this short novel, a monomaniacal 'scientist' more or less deliberately alienates himself from society in order to focus on his work. This summary should sound familiar to regular readers of Bernhard's fiction. In this case, the man known as Koller has lost a leg to a dog bite for which he received compensation enough to live on, thus allowing him to fully immerse himself in developing his theory of physiognomy. Central to this theory is his experience of regular dining at a low cost restaurant known as the Vienna Public Kitchen (VPK) with a group of men he refers to as 'the cheap-eaters', so-called for their inexpensive dining habits. As with other Bernhard novels, the 'anti-hero' of sorts, Koller, has an occasional companion (in this case, the narrator) who looks up to him for no clear reason. There is an element of the grotesque to their relationship, which wavers between one-sided admiration and mutual disdain, with a frequently occupied middle ground of mere tolerance from both sides. Koller does not appear to require interaction with other humans, but does in fact need their presence for his work (this is another recurrent characteristic of Bernhard's characters, e.g., the narrator in Concrete:
Note: this review is of the out-of-print Ewald Osers translation, but there is a new English translation by Douglas Robertson, who frequently (and eloquently) translates writings by and about Thomas Bernhard on his blog.
For at present I need nothing so much as to have people around me--not that I want any dealings with them; I don't even want to speak to them, I thought, sitting in the iron chair, but I must have them around me.Some of Bernhard's favorite themes find their voice in Koller, as he rails against formal education, parents, and authority in general, as well as provincialism and anti-intellectualism (the latter being a central theme in most of Bernhard's work). This novel bears a strong resemblance to both Yes and The Lime Works, and from a personal standpoint I'd place it between those two books, with Yes being my favorite of the three.
Note: this review is of the out-of-print Ewald Osers translation, but there is a new English translation by Douglas Robertson, who frequently (and eloquently) translates writings by and about Thomas Bernhard on his blog.
January 14, 2022
"For years he had fraternized with the cheap-eaters and had eaten cheaply with the cheap-eaters, had eaten more cheaply with the cheap-eaters than anywhere else and actually he had never eaten both as cheaply and as well anywhere else, for in the VPK he, Koller, had always eaten cheaply and well and he had never yet been able to eat both more cheaply and better anywhere else."
I was lucky to have this lingering Bernhard novel out there after reading pretty much everything else he wrote and praise be to Spurl Editions for publishing this nice new translation! This one has been hard to find until now.
Like all of Bernhard's stuff this is a fever-pitch single paragraph narrative best read in as few a sittings as possible so you can pretend that Bernhard is sitting across from you in a smoky Vienna cafe, reading you the novel from behind a newspaper while he swears at you and curses your very existence.
The plot: Koller has been working on his Physiognomy essay for years, but it is only when he walks towards one tree and not the other in one of Vienna's stately public parks that he realizes that the cheap-eaters are the key to his life's work. The ensuing novel is Koller's attempts to get to telling what this actually means and is a nice, often hilarious testament to the danger of being crushed by your own ideas, like, say, writing a novel like this.
As always, Bernhard=genius.
I was lucky to have this lingering Bernhard novel out there after reading pretty much everything else he wrote and praise be to Spurl Editions for publishing this nice new translation! This one has been hard to find until now.
Like all of Bernhard's stuff this is a fever-pitch single paragraph narrative best read in as few a sittings as possible so you can pretend that Bernhard is sitting across from you in a smoky Vienna cafe, reading you the novel from behind a newspaper while he swears at you and curses your very existence.
The plot: Koller has been working on his Physiognomy essay for years, but it is only when he walks towards one tree and not the other in one of Vienna's stately public parks that he realizes that the cheap-eaters are the key to his life's work. The ensuing novel is Koller's attempts to get to telling what this actually means and is a nice, often hilarious testament to the danger of being crushed by your own ideas, like, say, writing a novel like this.
As always, Bernhard=genius.
September 9, 2022
"De geestesmens diende echter in elk geval al op het moment van geboorte de strijd tegen de massa aan te binden, de massa het hoofd te bieden, het ertegen op te nemen, alleen dat legitimeerde hem als geestesmens. Wie aan die massa ook maar op één punt toegaf, had zichzelf als geestesmens opgegeven en was geen geestesmens. Maar dat de geestesmens natuurlijk altijd de massa en dus onvermijdelijk, pathetisch gezegd, de hele mensheid tegen zich had, was duidelijk. Even duidelijk was het echter dat slechts heel weinigen die strijd tegen de massa en tegen de mensheid aanbonden en zelfs van die weinigen leden de meesten bij voorbaat schipbreuk. Maar alleen al het aanbinden van die strijd tegen de massa was geweldig en in elk geval op termijn een legitimering als geestesmens. Uiteindelijk leden ze allemaal schipbreuk, ook zij die hun hele leven tegen de massa vochten en dus tegen de stompzinnigheid vochten, de massa verslond op een dag ook die weinigen en eigende zich hen toe door bijvoorbeeld monumenten voor hen op te richten of marmeren bordjes in de muren van hun huis te metselen."
April 13, 2024
In "Die Billigesser" ("De goedkoopeters") lezen we over Koller, een invalide die geobsedeerd is door zijn levenswerk: een "Fysionomie" schrijven, een studie van het menselijk gezicht gebaseerd op de "dagschotelaars", vier mannen die elke middag samenkomen in dezelfde eetgelegenheid om principieel de goedkoopste maaltijd te bestellen. Bernhard bouwt deze novelle zeer traag op, laat het karakter van Koller als geestesmens gaandeweg meer en meer doorschijnen en na de laatste twee zinnen kwam ik plots tot de vaststelling dat ik werkelijk om die neuroot gaf... Verplicht voer voor fans en zoals de beste Bernhards, volgepropt met eindeloos citeerbare zinnen die een genot zijn om luidop te lezen.
"Wij mogen ons niet volkomen aan de invalide uitleveren, niet voor de invalide capituleren, we moeten tegenover hem staande blijven, ook al moeten we onze toevlucht nemen tot gemeen gedrag."
"Want eerst is het een strijd tegen de ouders en vervolgens een strijd tegen de leraren die gevoerd en gewonnen moet worden en wel met uiterste meedogenloosheid gevoerd en gewonnen moet worden wil de jonge mens niet door zijn ouders en door zijn leraren tot opgeven worden gedwongen en daarmee worden verwoest en vernietigd."
"Wij mogen ons niet volkomen aan de invalide uitleveren, niet voor de invalide capituleren, we moeten tegenover hem staande blijven, ook al moeten we onze toevlucht nemen tot gemeen gedrag."
"Want eerst is het een strijd tegen de ouders en vervolgens een strijd tegen de leraren die gevoerd en gewonnen moet worden en wel met uiterste meedogenloosheid gevoerd en gewonnen moet worden wil de jonge mens niet door zijn ouders en door zijn leraren tot opgeven worden gedwongen en daarmee worden verwoest en vernietigd."
February 28, 2018
Ήθελα να γελάσω δυνατά, στο τέλος. Πολύ άρρωστο χιούμορ ο συγγραφέας, πραγματικά.
Δεν μπορώ να το εξηγήσω, αλλά διασκέδασα με αυτό το βιβλίο. Ούτε του κρατώ κακία του κυρίου Μπέρνχαρντ για την πλάκα που έσπασε μαζί μου.
Αλλά δεν το συστήνω σε κανέναν (προχωρήστε με δική σας ευθύνη).
Δεν μπορώ να το εξηγήσω, αλλά διασκέδασα με αυτό το βιβλίο. Ούτε του κρατώ κακία του κυρίου Μπέρνχαρντ για την πλάκα που έσπασε μαζί μου.
Αλλά δεν το συστήνω σε κανέναν (προχωρήστε με δική σας ευθύνη).
September 26, 2017
"La vita o l'esistenza non sono altro che l'incessante e in effetti ininterrotto, disperato tentativo di salvarsi da tutto sotto tutti gli aspetti possibili, cercando scampo nel futuro che ogni volta altro non fa se non riaprire questo identico infinito, mortale processo. La massa rifiuta già il singolo pensiero, figuriamoci l'attività del pensare, perché altrimenti ne sarebbe annientata all'istante, e così abbiamo a che fare con una massa completamente spensierata che in fondo non si oppone a nulla, ma si oppone sempre all'attività del pensiero. "
June 5, 2023
Heerlijk.
February 13, 2022
Bernhardeide
Con I mangia a poco sono giunto alla quarta opera di Thomas Bernhard consecutivamente letta, visto che prima ho letto Amras, Cemento ed Eventi, li ho letti esattamente in questo ordine, vale a dire in ordine alfabetico rispetto al titolo, anche se avrei potuto leggerli in un altro ordine, ad esempio in ordine di pubblicazione o dal più breve al più lungo, o viceversa, ma io li ho letti invece in ordine alfabetico, perché questo modo di lettura fa parte del mio metodo di lettura, che prevede che io, Vittorio, legga i miei libri per anno di acquisto, e per ogni anno in ordine alfabetico rispetto all’autore, e per ogni autore in ordine alfabetico rispetto al titolo, ed ho adottato questo metodo, vale a dire leggere i miei libri per anno di acquisto, e per ogni anno in ordine alfabetico rispetto all’autore, e per ogni autore in ordine alfabetico rispetto al titolo, in quanto mi ero reso conto, una quindicina di anni fa, che molti libri acquistati anni prima non li avevo letti, rischiando di dimenticarli sugli scaffali della mia libreria, in quanto ero portato a leggere libri acquistati di recente, ma adottando un metodo preciso di lettura, leggendo cioè i miei libri per anno di acquisto, quindi in ordine alfabetico rispetto all’autore e per ogni autore in ordine alfabetico per titolo, avrei evitato di dimenticarmi di leggere libri acquistati molti anni prima, e questo preciso metodo di lettura mi avrebbe permesso di leggere effettivamente tutti i libri della mia libreria, come effettivamente sta avvenendo, anche se non so se la mia vita sarà sufficientemente lunga da permettermi di leggerli proprio tutti.
In realtà I mangia a poco non è il quarto libro di Thomas Bernhard che ho letto, in quanto circa tre anni fa, vale a dire nel maggio del 2019, ho letto L’imitatore di voci e Il soccombente, quindi ad oggi ho letto sei libri di questo autore austriaco, Thomas Bernhard, e la ragione per cui circa tre anni fa, vale a dire nel maggio del 2019, ho letto L’imitatore di voci, primo libro in assoluto di Thomas Bernhard da me letto, e Il soccombente, risiede anch’essa nel mio preciso metodo di lettura, e visto che ho acquistato L’imitatore di voci e Il soccombente nel 2007 mentre Amras, Cemento, Eventi e I mangia a poco li ho acquistati nel 2008 allora è chiaro perché il mio preciso metodo di lettura mi ha portato a leggere prima L’imitatore di voci e Il soccombente di Amras, Cemento, Eventi e I mangia a poco, ed il fatto che abbia acquistato L’imitatore di voci e Il soccombente solo un anno prima di Amras, Cemento, Eventi e I mangia a poco mentre abbia letto Amras, Cemento, Eventi e I mangia a poco circa tre anni dopo L’imitatore di voci e Il soccombente mostra anche come al tempo acquistassi in un anno molti più libri di quanti riuscissi a leggerne, in quanto io, Vittorio, sino a pochi anni fa acquistavo cento o più libri all’anno, mentre in un anno riesco a leggerne circa una quarantina, anche se ovviamente il numero esatto varia di anno in anno soprattutto in base al numero di pagine dei libri, perché è chiaro che leggere un libro di cento pagine non richiede lo stesso tempo che richiede leggere un libro di mille pagine, ed inoltre io, Vittorio, leggo con maggiore o minore intensità anche in base a quanto un libro mi appassiona o mi annoia, come del resto credo capiti alla maggior parte dei lettori di libri.
Comunque nella mia libreria i libri di questo autore, Thomas Bernhard, sono nove, quindi se per il momento ne ho letto sei ne consegue che in futuro leggerò almeno altri tre suoi libri, vale a dire libri scritti da Bernhard, questo sempre che non acquisti nel tempo altri libri di questo autore austriaco, Thomas Bernhard, nel qual caso ne leggerò più di altri tre, ma che io acquisti altri libri suoi, di Thomas Bernhard, è in realtà poco probabile, perché posseggo una gran quantità di libri che non ho ancora letto e che non so se riuscirò a leggere in quanto, come tutti gli esseri viventi, sono destinato a morire, ed avendo già più di sessanta anni mi servono almeno altri venticinque anni di vita, supponendo che il mio ritmo di lettura rimanga di circa quaranta libri all’anno, per leggere tutti i libri che posseggo e non ho ancora letto, quindi dovrei vivere e leggere, mantenendo questo ritmo annuale, sino alla soglia dei novanta anni, età che va ben oltre l’attuale aspettativa di vita di un uomo italiano; inoltre mi sono fatto l’idea, forse sbagliata ma forse no, che nove libri siano sufficienti per esplorare l’universo poetico di questo autore austriaco, Thomas Bernhard. In ogni caso, i tre libri suoi, vale a dire scritti da Bernhard, sono stati da me, Vittorio, acquistati nel 2013, e visto che in quegli anni acquistavo moltissimi libri rispetto al mio ritmo di lettura, che è di circa quaranta libri all’anno, è molto probabile che passi ancora qualche anno prima che legga un altro libro di questo autore, Thomas Bernhard.
Dunque I mangia a poco è il quarto libro scritto da questo autore, Thomas Bernhard, che leggo consecutivamente, ma questo libro si differenzia notevolmente dagli altri tre libri da me, Vittorio, letti prima de I mangia a poco, innanzitutto perché questo libro, I mangia a poco, è stato pubblicato dalla casa editrice Adelphi, mentre gli altri tre libri suoi, cioè scritti da Thomas Bernhard, da me letti prima di I mangia a poco, vale a dire Amras, Cemento ed Eventi, ovviamente oltre L’imitatore di voci e Il soccombente, che io, Vittorio, ho letto circa tre anni fa, vale a dire nel maggio del 2019, che non fanno parte di questa ultima serie di letture di questo autore austriaco, Thomas Bernhard, sono editi da un’altra casa editrice, la milanese SE, il cui nome non indica la congiunzione se, come sarebbe peraltro plausibile visto che la congiunzione se indica il dubbio ed il dubbio è uno dei fondamenti del vero sapere, come del resto insegnava già Socrate, ma è semplicemente l’acronimo di Studio Editoriale. La differenza fra i tre libri scritti da Thomas Bernhard pubblicati dalla casa editrice SE da me letti, vale a dire Amras, Cemento ed Eventi, e questo libro, scritto da Thomas Bernhard ma pubblicato dalla casa editrice Adelphi nel 2000, cioè I mangia a poco, non risiede ovviamente solo nel fatto che le copertine dei primi tre, vale a dire Amras, Cemento ed Eventi, sono di colore beige e sono occupate quasi interamente dalla riproduzione di un’opera d’arte, o meglio dalla riproduzione di un’opera d’arte diversa per ciascuno dei tre libri, mentre la copertina di questo libro di Thomas Bernhard pubblicato dalla casa editrice Adelphi nel 2000, cioè I mangia a poco, è di colore azzurro cielo, su cui spicca un riquadro raffigurante un’opera d’arte, che per la verità occupa molto meno spazio di quanto avvenga nelle copertine dei tre libri di Thomas Bernhard da me letti pubblicati dalla casa editrice SE. La vera differenza tra i quattro libri è che questo libro pubblicato dalla casa editrice Adelphi nel 2000, cioè I mangia a poco, è privo di qualsiasi prefazione, postfazione o note esplicative, in altri termini manca di un qualsiasi apparato critico, a differenza dei tre libri scritti da Thomas Bernhard pubblicati dalla casa editrice SE e da me letti, vale a dire Amras, Cemento ed Eventi, tutti corredati da un illuminante saggio di Luigi Reitani, ovviamente un saggio diverso per ciascuno dei tre libri, anche se io, Vittorio, ritengo che in questo caso la mancanza di un qualsiasi apparato critico, cosa che del resto caratterizza quasi tutti i titoli della casa editrice Adelphi ed in particolare quelli pubblicati nella sua collana più conosciuta, Biblioteca, mentre questo libro è pubblicato in un’altra collana, denominata Fabula, che peraltro poco si discosta, relativamente allo stile grafico e appunto per la comune mancanza di un qualsiasi apparato critico, dalla collana Biblioteca, non sia una mancanza grave, in quanto I mangia a poco è un testo nel quale l’autore, Thomas Bernhard, affina al massimo grado la sua, ovvero di Thomas Bernhard, capacità di scrivere decine di pagine avvitate attorno ad alcuni temi fondamentali, che vengono ripresi dallo scrittore ossessivamente e con lievi variazioni, ovvero variandone leggermente il tono e la forma, conferendo così al testo un andamento quasi musicale, nel quale le singole, lunghe frasi riprendono, in maniera appunto ossessiva e con lievi progressive variazioni, brevi elementi fonetici che esprimono un concetto oppure caratterizzano un personaggio ovvero ancora denotano una situazione che lui, Thomas Bernhard, ritiene centrale nello sviluppo del ritmo del testo, in un gioco linguistico che appare del tutto fine a sé stesso, essendo lui, Bernhard, forse ormai ossessionato, in questa fase della sua vicenda artistica, solamente dalla forma di ciò che scriveva, in altri termini dalla necessità di rendere ciò che scriveva coerente con ciò che lui, Bernhard, si sarebbe aspettato che proprio lui, Bernhard, avrebbe dovuto scrivere, e ciò a prescindere dal contenuto di ciò che lui, Bernhard, andava scrivendo. Cosicché, nel caso de I mangia a poco, il testo è totalmente rivolto verso sé stesso, vale a dire che esso, il testo, è costruito dall’autore, Thomas Bernhard, solo in quanto testo, in modo tale che si assiste leggendolo, questo testo, a una divaricazione profonda tra significante e significato, nel senso che esso, il testo, rasenta la perdita totale di significato, limitandosi ad esprimere solamente lo sviluppo di lunghe frasi, nelle quali come detto brevi frammenti vengono ripetuti ossessivamente, con lievi ed impercettibili variazioni, che se assumono un significato lo assumono in quanto fonemi.
Perché se, al di là del ritmo quasi musicale che la prosa dell’autore austriaco, ossia Thomas Bernhard, assume attraverso l’ossessiva ripetizione con continue variazioni di brevi frammenti, come del resto farà in maniera analoga nella sua successiva opera, vale a dire Cemento, che io, Vittorio, ho peraltro letto e commentato di recente, facendo tale opera parte della serie di quattro libri, scritti da Bernhard, da me letti in sequenza, il lettore di questo libro scritto da Thomas Bernhard, ovvero I mangia a poco, andasse alla ricerca di un qualsiasi significato, ovvero di ciò che l’autore, Bernhard, voleva trasmettere oltre e al di là del ritmo quasi musicale della sua, di Bernhard, prosa, farebbe fatica a trovare altro che non siano alcuni luoghi comuni della letteratura novecentesca e non solo, almeno a partire dal romanticismo tedesco, come testimonia il fatto che l’autore, cioè Bernhard, in esergo al libro pone un frammento da Novalis, od almeno io, Vittorio, in quanto lettore, non vi ho trovato altro, anche se non è affatto da escludere che questo mio non trovare derivi da mie carenze analitiche in quanto lettore, come pure da una sottigliezza e finezza espressiva dell’autore che io, Vittorio, in quanto lettore dilettante non sono stato in grado di cogliere.
Per quanto mi riguarda comunque il primo luogo comune che si ravvisa ne I mangia a poco è proprio il personaggio principale, Koller, che rappresenta innanzitutto un luogo comune dell’universo artistico dell’autore, vale a dire di Thomas Bernhard, ovvero l’intellettuale elitario, chiuso in sé stesso e al contempo fallito in quanto incapace di produrre alcunché di un qualsiasi valore culturale, che si ritroverà nella sua successiva opera, vale a dire Cemento, con in aggiunta il particolare della mutilazione fisica come metafora dell’isolamento intellettuale dal resto della società e presa di coscienza della necessità di tale isolamento, ma il personaggio principale, Koller, è anche l’ultimo epigono, e non il più significativo, di tanti personaggi che nella storia della letteratura, in particolare di area tedesca ma non solo, hanno rappresentato la figura dell’intellettuale che ha perso il suo ruolo nella società ovvero non ritiene di avere alcun ruolo nella società in quanto la disprezza, la società, ritenendosi infinitamente superiore ad essa.
Lui, Koller, in quanto epigono dell’intellettuale chiuso nella sua torre d’avorio, ed inoltre come detto fallito in quanto incapace da sempre di scrivere qualcosa nell’ambito della scienza che coltiva, la fisiognomica, ovvero la scienza che desume il carattere delle persone dai loro lineamenti, anche se io, Vittorio, credo che alla fisiognomica di Koller vada attribuito un significato più ampio, di indagine sull’apparenza complessiva dell’uomo rispetto ai suoi rapporti sociali, comprende che la chiave per poter esprimere la sua fisiognomica, ovvero la possibilità di scrivere finalmente la sua opera, sta nel gruppo di quattro amici con i quali per anni ha mangiato nella Cucina Pubblica Viennese sulla Döblinger Hauptstrasse, i mangia a poco che danno titolo al libro, intitolato appunto I mangia a poco, che peraltro è la non agevole né riuscitissima traduzione del titolo originale che l’autore, Bernhard, ha dato al libro, Die Billigesser, e che lui, Koller, chiama I mangia a poco perché nella Cucina Pubblica Viennese sulla Döblinger Hauptstrasse, una mensa popolare a buon mercato, mangiano sempre i cibi meno cari. Ed anche questi quattro personaggi, che l’autore, Thomas Bernhard, caratterizza nelle pagine finali del libro, rappresentano per me, Vittorio, degli stereotipi, sia per quel loro essere gli umili tra gli umili tra i quali il protagonista, Koller, sembra trovare la chiave dell’interpretazione effettiva del suo ruolo di intellettuale che non ritiene di avere alcun ruolo nella società in quanto la disprezza, sia in quanto ciascuno rappresenta un tipo stereotipato di piccolo borghese o popolano incontrato tante volte in letteratura, essendo Weninger il piccolo trafficante in affari loschi, Goldschmidt il libraio ebreo colto, comunista e povero, Einzig il millantatore di una antica nobiltà perduta, Grill il rozzo ma sincero contadino tirolese, e la loro caratterizzazione da parte dell’autore, nelle pagine finali del libro, oltre ad apparire affrettata ricorda molto a me, Vittorio, un espressionismo ormai di seconda mano al tempo in cui Thomas Bernhard scriveva questo libro, vale a dire la fine degli anni ‘70 del secolo scorso.
Sarebbero molti altri gli elementi tramite i quali un lettore come me, Vittorio, potrebbe affannarsi a ricercare significati reconditi dietro l’incedere delle lunghe frasi ritmate con le quali l’autore austriaco, vale a dire Thomas Bernhard, ha costruito questo libro, ma io, Vittorio, ritengo davvero che l’autore in questo libro abbia soprattutto, se non esclusivamente, ricercato un ritmo di scrittura, una modalità di esprimersi che potesse riconoscere come sua, e che a questa ricerca abbia sacrificato ogni contenuto, rifugiandosi nella banalità. E con questo io, Vittorio, termino di occuparmi, almeno per qualche anno, di questo scrittore austriaco, Thomas Bernhard, che anche in questa sua opera, I mangia a poco, ha anteposto il suo bisogno di identità ad ogni altra cosa, non senza un certo sollievo, perché so che esiste letteratura migliore.
Con I mangia a poco sono giunto alla quarta opera di Thomas Bernhard consecutivamente letta, visto che prima ho letto Amras, Cemento ed Eventi, li ho letti esattamente in questo ordine, vale a dire in ordine alfabetico rispetto al titolo, anche se avrei potuto leggerli in un altro ordine, ad esempio in ordine di pubblicazione o dal più breve al più lungo, o viceversa, ma io li ho letti invece in ordine alfabetico, perché questo modo di lettura fa parte del mio metodo di lettura, che prevede che io, Vittorio, legga i miei libri per anno di acquisto, e per ogni anno in ordine alfabetico rispetto all’autore, e per ogni autore in ordine alfabetico rispetto al titolo, ed ho adottato questo metodo, vale a dire leggere i miei libri per anno di acquisto, e per ogni anno in ordine alfabetico rispetto all’autore, e per ogni autore in ordine alfabetico rispetto al titolo, in quanto mi ero reso conto, una quindicina di anni fa, che molti libri acquistati anni prima non li avevo letti, rischiando di dimenticarli sugli scaffali della mia libreria, in quanto ero portato a leggere libri acquistati di recente, ma adottando un metodo preciso di lettura, leggendo cioè i miei libri per anno di acquisto, quindi in ordine alfabetico rispetto all’autore e per ogni autore in ordine alfabetico per titolo, avrei evitato di dimenticarmi di leggere libri acquistati molti anni prima, e questo preciso metodo di lettura mi avrebbe permesso di leggere effettivamente tutti i libri della mia libreria, come effettivamente sta avvenendo, anche se non so se la mia vita sarà sufficientemente lunga da permettermi di leggerli proprio tutti.
In realtà I mangia a poco non è il quarto libro di Thomas Bernhard che ho letto, in quanto circa tre anni fa, vale a dire nel maggio del 2019, ho letto L’imitatore di voci e Il soccombente, quindi ad oggi ho letto sei libri di questo autore austriaco, Thomas Bernhard, e la ragione per cui circa tre anni fa, vale a dire nel maggio del 2019, ho letto L’imitatore di voci, primo libro in assoluto di Thomas Bernhard da me letto, e Il soccombente, risiede anch’essa nel mio preciso metodo di lettura, e visto che ho acquistato L’imitatore di voci e Il soccombente nel 2007 mentre Amras, Cemento, Eventi e I mangia a poco li ho acquistati nel 2008 allora è chiaro perché il mio preciso metodo di lettura mi ha portato a leggere prima L’imitatore di voci e Il soccombente di Amras, Cemento, Eventi e I mangia a poco, ed il fatto che abbia acquistato L’imitatore di voci e Il soccombente solo un anno prima di Amras, Cemento, Eventi e I mangia a poco mentre abbia letto Amras, Cemento, Eventi e I mangia a poco circa tre anni dopo L’imitatore di voci e Il soccombente mostra anche come al tempo acquistassi in un anno molti più libri di quanti riuscissi a leggerne, in quanto io, Vittorio, sino a pochi anni fa acquistavo cento o più libri all’anno, mentre in un anno riesco a leggerne circa una quarantina, anche se ovviamente il numero esatto varia di anno in anno soprattutto in base al numero di pagine dei libri, perché è chiaro che leggere un libro di cento pagine non richiede lo stesso tempo che richiede leggere un libro di mille pagine, ed inoltre io, Vittorio, leggo con maggiore o minore intensità anche in base a quanto un libro mi appassiona o mi annoia, come del resto credo capiti alla maggior parte dei lettori di libri.
Comunque nella mia libreria i libri di questo autore, Thomas Bernhard, sono nove, quindi se per il momento ne ho letto sei ne consegue che in futuro leggerò almeno altri tre suoi libri, vale a dire libri scritti da Bernhard, questo sempre che non acquisti nel tempo altri libri di questo autore austriaco, Thomas Bernhard, nel qual caso ne leggerò più di altri tre, ma che io acquisti altri libri suoi, di Thomas Bernhard, è in realtà poco probabile, perché posseggo una gran quantità di libri che non ho ancora letto e che non so se riuscirò a leggere in quanto, come tutti gli esseri viventi, sono destinato a morire, ed avendo già più di sessanta anni mi servono almeno altri venticinque anni di vita, supponendo che il mio ritmo di lettura rimanga di circa quaranta libri all’anno, per leggere tutti i libri che posseggo e non ho ancora letto, quindi dovrei vivere e leggere, mantenendo questo ritmo annuale, sino alla soglia dei novanta anni, età che va ben oltre l’attuale aspettativa di vita di un uomo italiano; inoltre mi sono fatto l’idea, forse sbagliata ma forse no, che nove libri siano sufficienti per esplorare l’universo poetico di questo autore austriaco, Thomas Bernhard. In ogni caso, i tre libri suoi, vale a dire scritti da Bernhard, sono stati da me, Vittorio, acquistati nel 2013, e visto che in quegli anni acquistavo moltissimi libri rispetto al mio ritmo di lettura, che è di circa quaranta libri all’anno, è molto probabile che passi ancora qualche anno prima che legga un altro libro di questo autore, Thomas Bernhard.
Dunque I mangia a poco è il quarto libro scritto da questo autore, Thomas Bernhard, che leggo consecutivamente, ma questo libro si differenzia notevolmente dagli altri tre libri da me, Vittorio, letti prima de I mangia a poco, innanzitutto perché questo libro, I mangia a poco, è stato pubblicato dalla casa editrice Adelphi, mentre gli altri tre libri suoi, cioè scritti da Thomas Bernhard, da me letti prima di I mangia a poco, vale a dire Amras, Cemento ed Eventi, ovviamente oltre L’imitatore di voci e Il soccombente, che io, Vittorio, ho letto circa tre anni fa, vale a dire nel maggio del 2019, che non fanno parte di questa ultima serie di letture di questo autore austriaco, Thomas Bernhard, sono editi da un’altra casa editrice, la milanese SE, il cui nome non indica la congiunzione se, come sarebbe peraltro plausibile visto che la congiunzione se indica il dubbio ed il dubbio è uno dei fondamenti del vero sapere, come del resto insegnava già Socrate, ma è semplicemente l’acronimo di Studio Editoriale. La differenza fra i tre libri scritti da Thomas Bernhard pubblicati dalla casa editrice SE da me letti, vale a dire Amras, Cemento ed Eventi, e questo libro, scritto da Thomas Bernhard ma pubblicato dalla casa editrice Adelphi nel 2000, cioè I mangia a poco, non risiede ovviamente solo nel fatto che le copertine dei primi tre, vale a dire Amras, Cemento ed Eventi, sono di colore beige e sono occupate quasi interamente dalla riproduzione di un’opera d’arte, o meglio dalla riproduzione di un’opera d’arte diversa per ciascuno dei tre libri, mentre la copertina di questo libro di Thomas Bernhard pubblicato dalla casa editrice Adelphi nel 2000, cioè I mangia a poco, è di colore azzurro cielo, su cui spicca un riquadro raffigurante un’opera d’arte, che per la verità occupa molto meno spazio di quanto avvenga nelle copertine dei tre libri di Thomas Bernhard da me letti pubblicati dalla casa editrice SE. La vera differenza tra i quattro libri è che questo libro pubblicato dalla casa editrice Adelphi nel 2000, cioè I mangia a poco, è privo di qualsiasi prefazione, postfazione o note esplicative, in altri termini manca di un qualsiasi apparato critico, a differenza dei tre libri scritti da Thomas Bernhard pubblicati dalla casa editrice SE e da me letti, vale a dire Amras, Cemento ed Eventi, tutti corredati da un illuminante saggio di Luigi Reitani, ovviamente un saggio diverso per ciascuno dei tre libri, anche se io, Vittorio, ritengo che in questo caso la mancanza di un qualsiasi apparato critico, cosa che del resto caratterizza quasi tutti i titoli della casa editrice Adelphi ed in particolare quelli pubblicati nella sua collana più conosciuta, Biblioteca, mentre questo libro è pubblicato in un’altra collana, denominata Fabula, che peraltro poco si discosta, relativamente allo stile grafico e appunto per la comune mancanza di un qualsiasi apparato critico, dalla collana Biblioteca, non sia una mancanza grave, in quanto I mangia a poco è un testo nel quale l’autore, Thomas Bernhard, affina al massimo grado la sua, ovvero di Thomas Bernhard, capacità di scrivere decine di pagine avvitate attorno ad alcuni temi fondamentali, che vengono ripresi dallo scrittore ossessivamente e con lievi variazioni, ovvero variandone leggermente il tono e la forma, conferendo così al testo un andamento quasi musicale, nel quale le singole, lunghe frasi riprendono, in maniera appunto ossessiva e con lievi progressive variazioni, brevi elementi fonetici che esprimono un concetto oppure caratterizzano un personaggio ovvero ancora denotano una situazione che lui, Thomas Bernhard, ritiene centrale nello sviluppo del ritmo del testo, in un gioco linguistico che appare del tutto fine a sé stesso, essendo lui, Bernhard, forse ormai ossessionato, in questa fase della sua vicenda artistica, solamente dalla forma di ciò che scriveva, in altri termini dalla necessità di rendere ciò che scriveva coerente con ciò che lui, Bernhard, si sarebbe aspettato che proprio lui, Bernhard, avrebbe dovuto scrivere, e ciò a prescindere dal contenuto di ciò che lui, Bernhard, andava scrivendo. Cosicché, nel caso de I mangia a poco, il testo è totalmente rivolto verso sé stesso, vale a dire che esso, il testo, è costruito dall’autore, Thomas Bernhard, solo in quanto testo, in modo tale che si assiste leggendolo, questo testo, a una divaricazione profonda tra significante e significato, nel senso che esso, il testo, rasenta la perdita totale di significato, limitandosi ad esprimere solamente lo sviluppo di lunghe frasi, nelle quali come detto brevi frammenti vengono ripetuti ossessivamente, con lievi ed impercettibili variazioni, che se assumono un significato lo assumono in quanto fonemi.
Perché se, al di là del ritmo quasi musicale che la prosa dell’autore austriaco, ossia Thomas Bernhard, assume attraverso l’ossessiva ripetizione con continue variazioni di brevi frammenti, come del resto farà in maniera analoga nella sua successiva opera, vale a dire Cemento, che io, Vittorio, ho peraltro letto e commentato di recente, facendo tale opera parte della serie di quattro libri, scritti da Bernhard, da me letti in sequenza, il lettore di questo libro scritto da Thomas Bernhard, ovvero I mangia a poco, andasse alla ricerca di un qualsiasi significato, ovvero di ciò che l’autore, Bernhard, voleva trasmettere oltre e al di là del ritmo quasi musicale della sua, di Bernhard, prosa, farebbe fatica a trovare altro che non siano alcuni luoghi comuni della letteratura novecentesca e non solo, almeno a partire dal romanticismo tedesco, come testimonia il fatto che l’autore, cioè Bernhard, in esergo al libro pone un frammento da Novalis, od almeno io, Vittorio, in quanto lettore, non vi ho trovato altro, anche se non è affatto da escludere che questo mio non trovare derivi da mie carenze analitiche in quanto lettore, come pure da una sottigliezza e finezza espressiva dell’autore che io, Vittorio, in quanto lettore dilettante non sono stato in grado di cogliere.
Per quanto mi riguarda comunque il primo luogo comune che si ravvisa ne I mangia a poco è proprio il personaggio principale, Koller, che rappresenta innanzitutto un luogo comune dell’universo artistico dell’autore, vale a dire di Thomas Bernhard, ovvero l’intellettuale elitario, chiuso in sé stesso e al contempo fallito in quanto incapace di produrre alcunché di un qualsiasi valore culturale, che si ritroverà nella sua successiva opera, vale a dire Cemento, con in aggiunta il particolare della mutilazione fisica come metafora dell’isolamento intellettuale dal resto della società e presa di coscienza della necessità di tale isolamento, ma il personaggio principale, Koller, è anche l’ultimo epigono, e non il più significativo, di tanti personaggi che nella storia della letteratura, in particolare di area tedesca ma non solo, hanno rappresentato la figura dell’intellettuale che ha perso il suo ruolo nella società ovvero non ritiene di avere alcun ruolo nella società in quanto la disprezza, la società, ritenendosi infinitamente superiore ad essa.
Lui, Koller, in quanto epigono dell’intellettuale chiuso nella sua torre d’avorio, ed inoltre come detto fallito in quanto incapace da sempre di scrivere qualcosa nell’ambito della scienza che coltiva, la fisiognomica, ovvero la scienza che desume il carattere delle persone dai loro lineamenti, anche se io, Vittorio, credo che alla fisiognomica di Koller vada attribuito un significato più ampio, di indagine sull’apparenza complessiva dell’uomo rispetto ai suoi rapporti sociali, comprende che la chiave per poter esprimere la sua fisiognomica, ovvero la possibilità di scrivere finalmente la sua opera, sta nel gruppo di quattro amici con i quali per anni ha mangiato nella Cucina Pubblica Viennese sulla Döblinger Hauptstrasse, i mangia a poco che danno titolo al libro, intitolato appunto I mangia a poco, che peraltro è la non agevole né riuscitissima traduzione del titolo originale che l’autore, Bernhard, ha dato al libro, Die Billigesser, e che lui, Koller, chiama I mangia a poco perché nella Cucina Pubblica Viennese sulla Döblinger Hauptstrasse, una mensa popolare a buon mercato, mangiano sempre i cibi meno cari. Ed anche questi quattro personaggi, che l’autore, Thomas Bernhard, caratterizza nelle pagine finali del libro, rappresentano per me, Vittorio, degli stereotipi, sia per quel loro essere gli umili tra gli umili tra i quali il protagonista, Koller, sembra trovare la chiave dell’interpretazione effettiva del suo ruolo di intellettuale che non ritiene di avere alcun ruolo nella società in quanto la disprezza, sia in quanto ciascuno rappresenta un tipo stereotipato di piccolo borghese o popolano incontrato tante volte in letteratura, essendo Weninger il piccolo trafficante in affari loschi, Goldschmidt il libraio ebreo colto, comunista e povero, Einzig il millantatore di una antica nobiltà perduta, Grill il rozzo ma sincero contadino tirolese, e la loro caratterizzazione da parte dell’autore, nelle pagine finali del libro, oltre ad apparire affrettata ricorda molto a me, Vittorio, un espressionismo ormai di seconda mano al tempo in cui Thomas Bernhard scriveva questo libro, vale a dire la fine degli anni ‘70 del secolo scorso.
Sarebbero molti altri gli elementi tramite i quali un lettore come me, Vittorio, potrebbe affannarsi a ricercare significati reconditi dietro l’incedere delle lunghe frasi ritmate con le quali l’autore austriaco, vale a dire Thomas Bernhard, ha costruito questo libro, ma io, Vittorio, ritengo davvero che l’autore in questo libro abbia soprattutto, se non esclusivamente, ricercato un ritmo di scrittura, una modalità di esprimersi che potesse riconoscere come sua, e che a questa ricerca abbia sacrificato ogni contenuto, rifugiandosi nella banalità. E con questo io, Vittorio, termino di occuparmi, almeno per qualche anno, di questo scrittore austriaco, Thomas Bernhard, che anche in questa sua opera, I mangia a poco, ha anteposto il suo bisogno di identità ad ogni altra cosa, non senza un certo sollievo, perché so che esiste letteratura migliore.
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